Stockman and entertainer from Casino, Sam Handford has worked with animals for all of his life, growing up on his parents' horse-breeding property, Kelton Farm.

These days, though, he's got his own gig to handle, running old and new school agricultural shows to entertain country towns since his first debut demonstration in 2020.

"We've got equine entertainment, which is a live show with a couple of little stock horses that we have trained ourselves, and they've gotten to the point where they're ready for shows," Mr Handford said.

Still in their early stages of their performance lives, one of Mr Handford's three horses is his "main little trick horse" named 'Mate' - whose name fits the show's Aussie mold pretty well - and while he's only three-years-old, the sitting and rolling stock horse has impressed the trainer already.

"Even just getting him out and about to events is big enough for a horse of that age, let alone having to lay down and roll over in front of a crowd," he said.

"And the shows are obviously something I'd love to live off, but in these early stages, we're still just finding our feet and getting some runs on the board - so, we're really looking forward to coming down for the Orange Show."

Having met while performing shows with the Australian Outback Spectacular together, Mr Handford is merging with another mate for the weekend's gig - though, this mate's his human pal.

"The fella that I do the show with, we teamed up because we were both drawn to the Australiana aspect of horses and entertainment," he said.

"So, when I started to create this show, it was something that I really wanted to have, you know - that family dynamic of Aussie culture."

Which - with Australian stock horses, a little blue cattle dog and an Australian Shepherd - is something crowd-goers can expect on May 14.

"We'll have our fire props, a swag and an Australian flag involved in the show, including a stock whip section with Darren Close of DC Horsemanship - he's a very talented whip cracker, as well," Mr Handford said.

"And we've got a 'State of Origin barrel race' that we'll run and Orange will be the debut of the little Australian shepherd versus the cattle dog. Oakley's a blue-merle, but she's got more red on her than he does, so she'll be Queensland and New South Wales will be the shepherd dog, Brax.

"So, yeah ... it's very Australian - put it that way!"

Gates open Saturday, May 14 at the Orange Showground on Leeds Parade from 9am, which will operate until 10pm.

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