Gallery | History in the making and muddiness: The past 10 years of Zaidee’s Mad Cow Mud Run

By Taylah Baker

Sep 25, 2024

**2022: Does this still count as a clean sweep for Lucy Potter, 13, and Annabelle Novak, 13?** Photo by Megan Fisher

Splish, splash, we’re taking a mud bath, diving into the past 10 years of one of the largest events on Greater Shepparton’s calendar.

Zaidee’s Mad Cow Mud Run, organised by Zaidee’s Rainbow Foundation, is an annual event in which participants crawl through pits of mud and scramble over obstacles, all while laughing their way to the finish line.

Allan Turner, founder of Zaidee’s Rainbow Foundation and proud dad of Zaidee, dubbed it “Australia’s largest obstacle course for all ages”.

Each year, the mud run draws hundreds of participants and thousands of spectators from across the state.

It’s an experience that even the most cleanliness-obsessed couldn’t grumble about, considering the heart of the cause.

The mud run is organised to honour Zaidee Turner, who died in 2004 at the age of seven due to a cerebral aneurysm.

When Zaidee became an organ and tissue donor, she saved and improved the lives of seven people, and the charity established in her honour continues to ignite discussion and raise awareness through such events.

To celebrate almost 20 years of Zaidee’s Rainbow Foundation, The News has dug through its archives to find photos of past participants, with their beaming smiles being the only whites unblemished by mud.

To learn more about Zaidee’s Rainbow Foundation and organ and tissue donation in Australia, visit www.zaidee.org/