September 8, 2026
The well-known Kilkivan Great Horse Ride is at a crossroads with a “last chance” meeting scheduled to be held in Kilkivan on September 22.
The meeting, which will be held in the Gympie Regional Council’s Kilkivan offices from 6:30pm, hopes to attract enough people to form an organising committee to take the event forward.
A post on the event’s Facebook page said there was a “healthy” budget in place, and a Gympie Regional Council grant had been pre-approved.
“Full handover and support guaranteed,” the post read.
Local councillor and former Ride participant Warren McEwan said it was a problem facing small communities everywhere.
“When it comes to volunteering, something’s broken in small rural towns,” Cr McEwan said.
“In the old days, there were always people willing to get stuck in and run community events for the good of the town. But now the handful who’ve carried it year after year are burnt out, moving out, or sadly dying out — and the baton hasn’t been passed on.”
The Kilkivan Great Horse Ride was the brainchild in 1986 of the late Fabian Webb, a long-serving Kilkivan Shire councillor and well-known country musician who died in 2014.
“For all these years, hundreds of riders have marked this on their calendar just to ride a horse through the countryside with mates,” Cr McEwan said.
“It’s grown into a community festival with horse riding at its heart.”
Cr McEwan said no one should feel daunted about stepping up to organise the event.
“The outgoing committee is ready to hand over everything …the admin, the know-how, all of it,” he said.
“It doesn’t need to be run by people who live in Kilkivan.
“We could shift the date or even run it every second year. It could be time for some lateral thinking.
“Come along on the 22nd. You don’t need to know anything about horses or event planning. Just care about keeping the tradition alive, that’s the only qualification you need.”
