Seaforth's Dugald McIntosh crowned Junior Champion at 2024 IPM

BY SHAWN LOUGHLIN

Dugald McIntosh from the Seaforth area was crowned the Junior Champion at last week’s International Plowing Match (IPM) held near Lindsay, punching his ticket to next year’s Canadian Plowing Championship in Ayton, Ontario.

 

McIntosh was one of just three competitors in Class 2B, but he dominated the competition with a total of 487 points. That put him head and shoulders above Carson Little of Amaranth, who was the Reserve Junior Champion with a total of 426 points.

 

The three young men competed over the course of three days with one another and McIntosh ended each day as the leader, so, going into the third and final day, he was in a pretty good position to win it all. When he was told he was the Junior Champion, McIntosh said he was pretty proud of himself and was happy to represent Huron County on the provincial stage.

 

Beyond that, however, he said he was happy to get to know his fellow competitors. Since there were just three of them, over the course of three days, he said they really got to spend a lot of time together and it turned into a really friendly competition.

 

As far as his time out in the field was concerned, McIntosh said that despite his dominance, it was no picnic out there. He said he felt prepared and had practised all week leading up to the match, so he was confident on the way to Lindsay. However, when he arrived, the fields had plenty of stones in them and were often hilly, adding to his degree of difficulty. To combat the stones, however, he said he just tried to go slowly and get the plow back in the dirt as soon as he could to stay on his path.

 

Looking ahead, he says he’s proud to represent his county and his province at the national competition next year. Furthermore, he said he’s happy that he’ll be the first member of the Huron County 4-H Sodbusters Club to compete at the Canadian Plowing Championship in a while. Something like that, he said, will be a real boost for the club and for youth plowing in Huron County as a whole.