Melville duck races draw crowds at 2021 Emerald Show

The Townsville based couple has been travelling around with their farm animals to shows across Queensland.

Craig and Ruth Melville with their racing ducks at the Emerald Show on June 2, 2021.

A Townsville couple brought their extremely unique animal race to the Emerald Show, which made crowds go wild.

Craig and Ruth Melville have been attending the Emerald show for about 20 years, and this year brought their crowd pleasing Indian Runner ducks for the duck races.

Mr Melville said they had been doing show entertainment for about 30 years, and had plenty of friends with different animal races including pigs and dachshunds, which is what sparked the idea about four years ago.

“We had these ducks on our property and my wife said ‘I bet you I can get the ducks to race’, because they’re so clever, they really learn quickly,” he said.

“I didn’t think it would be possible but she proved me wrong.

“Within two weeks she had them running down a straight and then we made a test track and they just picked it up so fast.”

The duck races attracted huge crowds of all ages.

The couple, who also brought the Melville Animal Farm, held numerous duck races at the 2021 Emerald Show, drawing crowds of children and adults to the course over the two show days on Tuesday and Wednesday.

“They actually feed off the energy of the people,” Mrs Melville said.

“The more people that are there, the more they want to run. If there’s not many people the ducks aren't really keen.”

Mr Melville said it was awesome to see all the smiles from crowds, while the ducks did something they enjoyed.

“Crowds are blown away because they think it’s going to be a waddle, not them actually running that fast,” he said.

Mrs Melville said the ducks were so keen to race last year that they pushed open the start gate before the countdown had finished.

“As soon as we play the race music they just switch on – game on,” she said.

A duck racing towards the finish line.

The couple has been travelling to the Emerald Show as part of the circuit which takes them all the way to Rockhampton and Port Douglas, attending about nine or 10 shows a year.

“We love coming to Emerald, it’s like family, it’s a good community feel,” Mr Melville said.

“We love how much it’s a community based show.

“People donate so much time to the show. We just want to say thank you to the committee for doing this.

“All the committee take their annual leave to work their buts off for the community. They put their heart and soul into it.”

The couple expect to be back at the 2022 Emerald Show, with both their Indian Runner ducks and the animal farm.

Originally published as Melville duck races draw crowds at 2021 Emerald Show