Morgan Webb and Emma O'Shea win Man From Snowy River Bush Festival challenge titles

Webb ended a 12-year drought in the event he first won as a 19-year and O'Shea's domination continued with her seventh successive win.

The couple were the standout performers of the challenge's final day events with Webb winning both the brumby catch and buck jump.

O'Shea also won the brumby catch to be a runaway winner once again.

The couple completed the double at one of the few events to be held last year, the King of the Ranges, before the COVID-19 lockdowns.

"I definitely missed it," Webb said.

"The worst part was having to work seven days a week because there was nothing to go to.

"You need the weekends to have a spell sometimes."

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The couple run a horse breaking and training business, but also spend a large chunk of the year in north Queensland on a property owned by O'Shea's family.

"We obviously didn't get to compete much at all last year," she said.

"But we were still as busy as ever in our job.

"We were one of the lucky ones in what we do, but we certainly did miss the competition side of things.

"We all knew you can't do the impossible."

Webb went into the final day leading narrowly from 2019 winner Kieran Davidson from Young, but he had an unsuccessful brumby catch and was tipped off inside the required eight seconds of the buck jump.

Davidson slipped outside the top five with former winner David Mitchell from Tooma jumping into second spot ahead of 19-year-old Travis Bandy, who was competing in the open section for the first time.

Bandy's father Scott is a five-time winner of the event.

Mitchell's brother John, who won a hat-trick of titles from 2016-18, started the final day in third place, but suffered the same fate as Davidson in the brumby catch and buck jump to slide to seventh spot.

Webb has been runner-up three times since his 2009 triumph.

"You come with realistic expectations knowing the competition is at a high level and lot of things can happen," he said.

"But when it all comes off it is a good feeling.

"I had a good day today and you've got to take those days when they come."

The horse he rode in the challenge was a nine-year-old gelding he purchased as a two-year-old.

Sarah Finlayson finished runner-up to O'Shea in the women's challenge with Christy Davidson in third place.

The junior event was taken out by Albion Park's Jessy Fox from Tumut's Riley Quinn.

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