About 20,000 people are expected to attend the Corryong festival which started yesterday and will run until Sunday.

The rain is expected to clear tomorrow afternoon.

Festival co-ordinator Jenny Boardman said numbers may be a little down due to the weather but it would be just as enjoyable.

“It’s all part of the bush experience. That’s why Driza-Bones and Akubras were invented,” she said.

“Everyone gets to dress up in their oilskin coats.”

Ms Boardman said the festival had an excellent standard that improved each year, and this year would be no different.

“We set the benchmark for the standard for this sort of event around Australia,” she said.

“We celebrate our culture and heritage. This is what our forefathers did on a day-to-day basis.”

One of those loved practices was riding wild horses, just as in the poem on which the festival is based, with the three-day horsemanship challenge an event highlight.

The challenge involves nine events, including pack horsing, horse shoeing, stock handling, bareback obstacles, cross country and whip cracking.

The top-10 out of the 80 entrants will battle it out on the Sunday in a “brumby catch” and a “stock saddle buckjump”.

The Victorian Bush Poetry Championships are also being held throughout the weekend.

The event’s manager Jan Lewis said about 100 poets would perform from all over Australia, with more entering than any other year.

Corryong College children took part in a junior event yesterday, dressed up in wigs and costumes to perform for family and friends.