Boris the kelpie still a winner in Lachie's eyes

After a gruelling 21-day competition that saw working dogs battle it out on farms across Australia, the winner of the 2025 Cobber Challenge has officially been crowned.

This year’s Cobber cohort covered more than 1946 kms and it was a dog named Duke, a tall leggy collie, and his owner Beck Smith, who did it best, racking up 556.47 Kms in a 52.27-hour period.

Interestingly it was well below the result of 2023 Tasmanian winner Alex Johns and his partially blind kelpie, Earl. 

The duo won that year’s competition by covering a distance of 1343kms in 21 days, and Earl was also recognised as the fastest competitor in the challenge's history averaging a top speed of 14.1 km/h. 

Based in Stonehenge, a remote town in Central Queensland with a population of 58, Beck was only the third woman to win the competition, which celebrates its milestone 10th anniversary this year.

Duke is only the second Collie to win the prestigious competition, and the second winner from Queensland.

The duo outclassed the field to take home the title, the trophy, a $3000 cash prize and 12 bags of Cobber Working Dog feed.

Tasmanian entrant Lachie Groves and his kelpie Borris did well to make it into the shortlisted top 11 entries.

They chose to record a short and sharp 1.36-hour stint where Borris covered 21.5 kms on Chiswick farm at Ross, which Lachie manages for his father-in-law Doug Burbury.

With 28,000 ewes grazing across 1800 hectares, Borris has become key to managing the large flock of composites, standing out in a team of seven working dogs.

Contestants were tested on speed, distance and duration over 21 days of activity, resulting in a composite score to find the top dog from the rest of the pack.

A shortlist of 11 of the fastest and fiercest mustering champions were assessed on speed, duration and distance covered over the competition period.

Based out in in Queensland’s Channel Country, Beck runs a resilient operation across 53,000ha, supported by a hardworking team of five dogs with Duke as her lead in handling most of the mustering across the property, a farmstead that was heavily impacted by floods earlier this year. 

For Cobber brand manager Lucy Marshall, the recognition is a poignant reminder of the thankless work that working dogs and regional farmers do, day after day.

“Our farmers and working dogs play such an important and often unrecognised role in putting food on tables up and down the country.

“In the ten years the challenge has been running, I’ve not seen a field of competitors this impressive.

 These dogs are lightning fast,” Ms Marshall said.

 “All of our competitors reached average top speeds of around 9.6 kilometres an hour.”

“Our winner Duke covered on average just over 26 kilometres a day over the course of the competition.”

Taking out second place was Denzel Bambridge and Buck, who covered a total distance of 316 kilometres and was the fastest dog in the pack.

Third place went to Tahlia Carroll and Stan (NSW), who covered 184 kilometres.

The final standings for the 2025 Cobber Challenge are included in the leaderboard below.