Francis Sache won the senior reversible competition in the 2017 Canadian plowing competition
By Diego Flammini
News Reporter
Farms.com
A dairy farmer from Rosedale, B.C. will don the maple leaf during the 2018 World Ploughing Championships in Germany.
Francis Sache earned his way to Germany after winning the senior reversible competition at the Canadian Plowing Championships, which were held in Ontario’s Bruce County on the Labour Day weekend.
Plowmen can practice as much as they feel necessary but everything boils down to performance, according to Sache.
“It’s whoever does the best job of plowing on the days of competition,” Sache told The Chilliwack Progress on Sept. 13.
“(My plot was) 25 feet (7.6 m) wider at one end than the other,” he said, adding his goals for the competition included tapering off his rows.
And unpredictable weather meant the field conditions were always changing.
“We saw just about everything in some plots, (the conditions) changed that quickly,” he told the Walkerton Herald-Times on Sept. 8. “The alfalfa field was probably the hardest – hard heavy clay, lumpy ground. It was very hard to go a good job in (those conditions). Tractors liked to spin (and) plows (were) hard to hold.”
Highlights from the 2016 World Ploughing Competition
Sache’s recent victory isn’t the first time the 33-year-old found himself on the top of a podium.
He was a junior Canadian champion for two years before switching over to the senior reversible category in 2007. He won that year’s Canadian event, which was held in Thunder Bay, Ont.
And plowing also runs in the Sache family.
Jim Sache, Francis’ uncle, was a judge during the Canadian competition and is Canada’s World Plowing Organization representative.
Francis plowed even, straight furrows and crowns, Jim told The Chilliwack Progress on Sept. 13.
The 65th World Ploughing Championships take place in Germany on Sept. 1 and 2, 2018. Nearly 30 countries will send teams to the competition.
Eric Ferguson from Sunderland, Ont., who won this year’s national senior conventional competition, will join Sache in Germany.
And Tom Evens from Tiverton, Ont., will represent Canada at the 2017 world event in Kenya this December in the reversible competition. He will be joined by Jay Lennox of Ayton, Alta., who will participate in the conventional plowing competition.
Canada last hosted the World Plowing Championships in 2013 in Olds, Alta.
The 2019 world event will take place in the U.S.
Top photo: Francis Sache/The Chilliwack Progress