Welsh beef win but supreme sheep is a Yorkshire victor at Countryside Live

The victory was a special one for 10-year-old Tom Arrowsmith who had stepped forward to show his family’s four-year-old Shropshire.

Tom, of Raskelf near Easingwold, had lined up in the supreme championship finale of the sheep competitions with his mother Lyn, who was displaying the Manx Loaghtan champion, and older brother Jack, 11, with the family’s champion Boreray.

Mrs Arrowsmith, who is at the forefront of promoting and rearing rare animal breeds in Yorkshire, said: “There are very few Shropshires in Yorkshire and we only have this one because we knew someone who needed a different breed of tup, so we swapped.”

Pateley Bridge’s Andrew Fisher was reserve champion with a Teeswater.

The winner of the single
butchers lamb competition was R Hall and Sons, of Penrith, with a home-bred Beltex X. Meanwhile, Martin and Val Brown, of Leyburn, and their pure Beltex lambs finished second only to Wales’s Enfys Williams and Helen Morgan, whose pedigree Blue Texel bred lambs won the supreme pair title.

A trophy was awarded for the champion Yorkshire bred, owned and shown cattle and it was John Stephenson, of Skipton, and his 15-month-old Belgian Blue X heifer that clinched the silverware. It continued a rich vein of form for Mr Stephenson’s beast which has won three championship titles this year, including at Kilnsey Show.

Following his earlier victory in the beef young handler class, Leyburn’s Luke Wilkinson was reserve champion.

The supreme beef beast was Lady Gaga, a Belgian Blue X Limousin Belgian Blue shown by Melanie and Michael Alford, of Devon, which pipped Mark and Sarah Harryman, of Pickering, and their Limousin X who came away as reserve champions.

The beast shown by the Harrymans, of Swainsea Barn Farm, was the champion steer at Malton Show and the Great Yorkshire.

YOUNG HANDLERS

Siblings Corey and Esmay Duddin from the North York Moors village of Chop Gate were a sight to behold in the Rare Breeds Survival Trust’s (RBST) sheep young handler classes.

At just 20 months, Esmay was the most junior exhibitor in the under-eights class. She was due to show in her own right but after being knocked over by her sheep, she teamed up with brother Corey, six, and his Jacob lamb.

The winners of the two older RBST young handler classes, Matthew Benson, 10, from Ulverston, Cumbria, and Jack Richardson, 15, of Newton on Derwent near York qualified for the final of the RBST’s Young Shepherd of the Year 2018 which will be held at next year’s Countryside Live.

Luke Wilkinson, 16, of Leyburn, reclaimed the beef young handler title. He showed Top Notch, a 17-month-old Limousin X that won its breed class at Wensleydale and Stokesley shows. and was a returning winner.