As ringmaster, the genial Bennett bears a heavy burden. He recites from memory the rules that govern his position: "Regarding the conduct of the Main Arena, and any competition, the decision of the ringmaster shall be final and binding. And that is regardless of whether the question concerns something that is animate or inanimate."

The Sydney Royal Easter Show is the largest annual event in Australia, and the sixth largest in the world, and Bennett has the last word on all of the 6000 horse competitions, from showjumping to camp-drafting, as well the centrepiece of the show, the Grand Parade. In addition, he trains the agricultural society's future leaders – the "showgirls" and Young Rural Achievers – in formal dining etiquette.

I was very hungry when I arrived at Sydney Olympic Park, to lunch with Bennett at a private-dining table overlooking the Main Arena. As soon as I sat down, I lunged at my Brasserie bread roll, sliced it in half, buttered it as if it were toast, and shoved it in my mouth, pausing only to plunge my thumb into the butter knob, which I thought would be cold and hard but turned out to be warm and soft.

"You break your bread," says Bennett, kindly. "You never cut it with your knife and fork. Then you're supposed to take as much butter as you think you might need, leaving enough for everybody else at the table, pop it on the side of your plate, return it to the central serving dish for everybody else, and then pop a little butter on your bread roll as you go."

I did none of that.

The Rural Achievers and showgirls are all schooled on the finer points of protocol. "But," says Bennett, "I always say to them, at the end of the day, the sort of people who are going to judge you about how you eat your bread roll probably aren't the ideal person to chat to at the table anyway."

Of all the ringmaster's responsibilities, the Grand Parade is the most fraught. "It's not the most popular thing for the exhibitors," says Bennett, "because they've come to the show to compete in their class, then we make them saddle up again, put all their gear on, and come out to go in the Grand Parade. And it's compulsory: if you don't go in the Grand Parade you get a fine, or you can have your award taken off you. The kids love it. It's the greatest thing to get out there on their pony in the Grand Parade and wave to people.

"Last year we had a little Brahman steer get away from someone in the cattle section. He wasn't particularly wild, just naughty. There was no way he was going to be caught and, of course, the crowd think that's the greatest thing ever – one cow running around and people trying to catch it, it dodging them and going this way and that way. Eventually, the cow was caught, but it's quite amazing the number of people I've come across who've said, 'I was there the day that steer got away'." During another event, about two years ago, "A horse got away and no one could catch it," says Bennett. "People were out there with bits of hay. We probably had more crowd watching that than the actual conduct of the events, when many people don't quite understand what's happening."

Bennett was born in the NSW south-coast town of Nowra, in 1970. His grandparents had a farm about five kilometres from the centre of town. When his grandfather retired, his father, Mervyn Bennett, bought part of the land and built a function centre at the front. Bennett went to school at Nowra High, where he became boys' school captain. He hoped to become a vet but didn't get the marks, so he enrolled instead at catering college, worked part-time at what was then the Sheraton Wentworth Hotel in Sydney, then returned home to help run the function centre.

Mervyn Bennett represented Australia at Montreal in the 1976 Olympic Equestrian Team and came home with a bronze medal. His achievement might be overlooked today, but in 1976 Australia won only one silver medal and four bronzes. "So Dad was quite a celebrity," says Bennett.

Mervyn was chosen to represent Australia again at the 1980 Moscow Olympics, but the competition was boycotted by the Australian equestrians in protest at the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan (this was before everyone else invaded Afghanistan) and he competed as an Olympian for the final time in Los Angeles in 1984.

But Mervyn had grown up around the Easter Show. As a young man, he had been eliminated four or five times before he even completed his event. The show is Australia's final selection event for the Olympics, and the Bennett family attended every year. "Fairness and competition were everything for us," says John. "With the blood, sweat and tears that goes into getting Dad to the event, the last thing you want is for something to be unfair.

"We always had a pony or a horse on the truck when Dad was competing," he says, "to keep us busy at events. I competed in eventing when I was young, and then in showjumping. I probably had a bit of talent as a jumper." But in 2004 he fell off a horse and broke a collarbone and, while he was recuperating, he became president of the Nowra Show Society. John found he enjoyed administration as much as competition. He had to give up one role, so he chose to quit riding. "And I don't regret that one bit," he says, "I'm entirely impartial. I'm separate. That's what drives me 100 per cent – fairness.

"Dad says, 'Everyone has their own Olympic Games. It doesn't have to be the Olympic Games.' For a lot of our exhibitors here, this is their Olympic Games. This the big deal."

When Mervyn Bennett retired as an Olympian, he "kept right away from horses", says John. "He didn't feel comfortable to go back to his sport and compete at a lower level. There's an enormous amount of stress that goes with competing for an Olympic team and Dad said, in hindsight, he may have had a nervous breakdown at the end of it. It must be frustrating for somebody who has been at the absolute top of their game to go back and play in the kiddie pool, and people might say, 'Oh, he's lost it', or whatever."

But six years ago, Mervyn reapplied for his racing-trainer's licence, and today father and son work their racehorses together every morning at the farm.

Bennett's story is interrupted (in a most discreet way) when lunch arrives at our table: JBS Riverina Angus scotch fillet, potato puree, broccolini, eshallot and mushroom jus – or, as it used to be called, "steak and three veg". The meat is mild, and almost as soft as the butter into which I earlier plunged my thumb.

I notice Bennett is dressed as an Australian, in Baxter boots and an RM Williams shirt and chinos. He says he wore the same gear when he gave an Australia Day address at Nowra. He told the crowd that being Australian wasn't about clothes. "It's to do with how you conduct yourself," he says. "We all get to wear whatever we want to wear. We've all got various things in our backgrounds. Some of my relatives were convicts, they came out here in chains. Others were Germans, who fled Germany before the war. An archetypal Australian outfit doesn't make you Australian."

However, a hat is crucially important to an Australian in the arena. A couple of years ago, the agricultural society issued all the staff with a uniform hat, but many decline to wear it. "Because when this ring's full and I look across," says Bennett, "I'll know who's who based on the hat that they've got on. I've got a few hats and, for no particular reason, I wear a different one on different days. Somebody said to me, 'We don't like it when you change your hat every day, because we can never find you and we never know when you're coming.'"

In those days, Bennett was only the assistant ringmaster, a position he held for five years. The 2016 show will be his first event in the top job. "The role of assistant ringmaster, I'm quite certain, is twice as hard as the actual role of ringmaster," he says. "Because the ringmaster just sits out there on his horse, looking official and saluting the governor. Meanwhile the assistant is the one running down the back vomitory, yelling, 'Hurry up! Come on!' 'The cattle aren't coming on time!'"

Bennett clearly loves being a part of the show, and his involvement with the agricultural society has taken him all around the world. He was even, by some strange process, selected as an observer at the Zambian tripartite elections in 2006. But every responsibility carries a cost.

"I always imagined I would've been married by this time in life," he says, "and it just hasn't happened. I can't say the opportunity is, in any way, the issue. It's just the follow-up, perhaps. Because I've been so driven by so many of the things I'm involved in, probably it's selfishness, I would think. It's not something that defines me, it's not something I think about. But I read the other day that the number of single-person households was some enormous amount and, I must admit, I thought, 'She is out there somewhere. There's plenty of her.'"

At the end of the meal, I take a Tea Tonic tea. The teabag is left in the cup, providing me with a familiar etiquette dilemma. "I'd put it onto the spoon," says Bennett, "wrap the string around the spoon, give it a bit of a pull and sit it at the side. If you really want to impress somebody. But we're at the stage, I think, where you could press it with your thumb."

TIMELINE

1970: Born in Nowra

1976: Father, Meryvn Bennett, wins bronze medal in the Montreal Olympics

1999: Leaves catering school at Ryde TAFE to work at his family's function centre outside Nowra

2004: Becomes President of the Nowra Show

2006: Observer at the tripartite elections in Zambia

2010: Elected assistant ringmaster, Royal Easter Show

2015: Elected ringmaster, Royal Easter Show