Move over Joey Chestnut, there’s going to be a new food contest GOAT in town.
Five of the stubborn barn yard animals will go horn-to-horn this Saturday for the first-ever competitive eating event involving the barnyard species — and they’re all hungry for the new title.
“The Great Goat Graze-Off” is an evolution of the annual Running of the Goats at Riverside Park, which sees the hairy little beasts use their chompers to clear acres of invasive species, like poison ivy and mugwort, from the Manhattan Park.
“We know that the girls are very excited and they’ve been practicing — we’ve heard — getting ready for the big moment this weekend,” Merritt Birnbaum, the CEO and President of the Riverside Park Conservancy, told The Post.
“Really, it’s just a taste of what is to come for their summer that they’ll be spending in the park with us.”
The gobbling goat contest will kick off the sixth summer that the four-legged weed whackers are being shipped in from upstate to help clear the grounds.
Last year, the conservancy celebrated the start of the grazing season with a literal Running of the Goats, but quickly realized “running” wasn’t really in the animals’ nature.
“We were thinking about what would really be the best way to welcome them to the park this year, and the idea of letting them do what they do best came to mind,” Birnbaum said, explaining how the eating contest was born.
And the contest will be just as serious as the Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest in Coney Island. The goats will each have their own coaches and counters, much like Chestnut was equipped with when he soared to victory after downing 70.5 glizzies last week.
The five goats — Romeo, Mallomar, Butterball, Kash and Rufus — will be given just five minutes to scarf down a pre-prepared bubble of mugwort as a crowd of eager onlookers cheer on their favorites.
George Shea, host of the Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest and chair of Major League Eating, will be emceeing the blockbuster event.
It’s not yet clear who the favorite is to win the “The Great Goat Graze-Off — though Birnbaum teased that Kash, a newcomer to Riverside Park, has “perhaps a stronger jaw than some of the other goats.”
“But that’s really just speculation. We know that the goats don’t really love to be told what to do, so it’s kind of anyone’s guess who will triumphing in this,” she continued.
“I think we can expect to witness a world-breaking weed-eating, but unsure what that world record will be.”
The five competitors will stick around at Riverside Park for the rest of the summer, munching their way through a two-acre plot at West 143rd Street that every year becomes overtaken with invasive species, like mugwort and poison ivy.
The animals are so efficient that in the past that some goats were relieved of their duties and sent home early.
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