• Click here for our picture gallery from the event.

AFTER two days being battered by brisk winds and soaked by heavy showers, Malvern’s Three Counties Show finally got a break yesterday as the sun came out, albeit briefly.

Nevertheless, organisers are bracing themselves for the unseasonal weather to have a “significant impact” on attendance figures.

“These have been the worst conditions the event has endured in the 15 years I have been here,” said show spokesman Sharon Gilbert.

“I would like to pay tribute to all the exhibitors and competitors who have stuck with us. We have done our best to make sure that what could go ahead did go ahead and although the cars parks were difficult in places, the drainage work carried out over the past year has really paid off and there were remarkably few problems.

“However the weather will obviously have had a significant impact on visitor numbers, particularly on Saturday.”

With the main arena reduced to a sea of mud in places, conditions were too slippery for the White Helmets Motorcycle team from the Royal Signal Corps to perform and in outside rings showjumping and carriage driving classes were cancelled.

But heroes of the hour were the stunt riders from the Devil’s Horsemen, who galloped through the wind and rain and never missed any of their twice-daily performances at the show.

Based at Milton Keynes, the group perform stunts for films and television and as leader Gerard Naprous pointed out, in their line of business getting wet occasionally is all part of the job.

Others stars were the riders in the McCartneys inter-hunt challenge, who raced through a torrential downpour in the main ring on Saturday with the winners being a Croome and West Warwickshire team led by joint master Di Ralph, from Leigh Sinton.

The NFU rolled out its new campaign at the Three Counties to highlight what farming contributes and how the industry can be part of the economic fightback.

The Farming Delivers for Britain initiative is now to spread across the UK.

NFU vice president Adam Quinney, who farms at Sambourne, near Redditch, said: “It’s great to go to a main agricultural show that flies the flag for what the industry has to offer and it really delivers for farming.

"This type of event sets the standard and should be what the show season is all about.

"The new campaign is going down really well with farmers because it is their campaign.

“Farming Delivers for Britain is also generating good public interest about what we do and what we are contributing.”

A survey carried out for the campaign showed that consumers continue to back the farming industry and Mr Quinney made a renewed appeal to the Government to reduce the red tape burden so farmers can get on and produce what the public wants.

As the rain lashed down on Saturday, the supreme championship in the inter-breed cattle classes was decided and the winner was a three-year-old Aberdeen Angus bull Oakchurch Diplomat, owned and bred by Jeremy Price of Staunton on Wye, in Herefordshire.

In the Three Counties cheese show, the reserve supreme champion was a rind-washed/dipped cheese made by Charles Martell, of Much Marcle.

The supreme champion went to a goat’s milk cheese from Cerney Cheese of Cirencester.

There was a class win in the cow’s milk cheese section for Croome Cuisine, of Worcester.

• Click here for our picture gallery from the event.