These little piggies: Tom and Michael Vandeleur with their racing pigs.
ERIN PEARSON
THEY travel the country in VIP style and next stop for Tony Vandeleur’s porky little pigs is Royal Geelong Show.
The herd will perform the show’s pig race and dive extravaganza.
Mr Vandeleur fell in love with pig racing after watching a similar show in America 19 years ago.
“The whole thing is that people expect them to come out and waddle around but they’re as fast as greyhounds out of the starting blocks,” he said.
“People don’t expect them to perform like that. The pigs race around the track entirely themselves without being coaxed or touched in any way.”
Mr Vandeleur said he spent five months a year travelling with his two diving and eight racing porkers.
Like thoroughbred racers, each has a name.
“There’s Bacon Bone, Pork Chop, Porky Pig, the Simpson family names and a few others,” Mr Vandeleur laughed.
“They’re all pretty intelligent, too.”
Mr Vandeleur admitted he was short a Black Caviar of the pig racing world but was happy regardless.
“You won’t see this sort of thing very often.”
The show runs until Sunday at Geelong Showgrounds.
