In an event named after Banjo Paterson’s most famous horseman, Scott Bandy won a record-breaking fifth title — a first for the 19-year-old festival.

Mr Bandy announced that next year he’d be watching from the sidelines.

“I’m finished now, I’ll give the young fellas a go,” Mr Bandy, 40 said, walking away from the claps on the back and cries of “well done”.

And that, organiser Jenny Boardman said, may be the only way anyone else could win the crowning event of the Man from Snowy River Bush Festival.

“I think that’s the only way we’re going to beat the bugger,” she said.

“He’s such a great competitor and a lovely person with it.”

The challenge is a search for the best horseman or woman in the country.

Skills and bodies are tested through a number of events including bareback riding and catching brumbies.

Like the Man from Snowy River, Mr Bandy is a bit of a household name today, at least in the Upper Murray.

Mr Bandy said his faithful stockhorse stallion Knights Top That was the reason he has managed his record-breaking run. The horse has been with him for four of the five titles.

“You point him at anything you want to do and he’ll do it,” he said.

“There’s the luck factor, definitely, but when your luck comes you’ve got to take it and use it and he’s been that solid in that competition.

“I’ve never had anything as nice as that horse.”

Ms Boardman said attendance at the four-day festival, which this year celebrated Paterson’s 150th birthday, perhaps surpassed last year’s 13,000.

“The weather gave us a bit of a stumbling block ... but we powered on,” she said.

“It was really heartening to see that we’re not just turning into another version of America, or adopting all the computerisation of the world.”