Princess crowns family's Beef Shorthorns best in the kingdom
Building a herd of top-quality animals is a skill that can take years of patience and careful management and for Geoff and Christopher Riby, this has been recognised with the National Herd Award for 2024 being awarded to their Stonehills Beef Shorthorn herd.
The presentation of the award was done during the recent Beef Shorthorn Development Day at the renowned Podehole herd in Cambridgeshire, where judges of the National Herd Award for 2024,
Charles and Sally Horrell along with son Harry, welcomed HRH the Princess Royal to Podehole Farm with over 100 fellow breed enthusiasts in attendance.
The afternoon of events started off with the Princess Royal being welcomed by the Horrell family to the farm, which has been home to the Podehole herd since 1997 before joining guests to present this year’s National Herd Award to Geoff and wife Jackie.
Finalists for 2024 included the Fearn, Croft, Blackbrook, Stonehills, Hannington, Standfordpark and Danycraig herds, who were representing their respective regions from across the UK.
Established in 2022 during the society’s bicentenary celebrations, the award scheme sponsored by Pedigree Sales Online Livestock Auctions will be run over an initial three-year period.
Mrs Horrell said: “With such a range of management systems and availability of forage the judging was anything but straightforward.
"All the herds had stock to be proud of and they were a credit to the breed. Ultimately it came down to where we would go to replenish our herd in the event we needed to restock and our champion herd had all the attributes we would be looking for.”
Stonehills has been home to Pedigree Beef Shorthorns for the last 20 years when Geoff decided to invest in the breed after previously milking cows.
“We decided to give Shorthorns a try as we were looking for a breed that could utilise permanent pastures that were part of stewardship schemes and were easy to manage,” said Geoff who runs the business alongside Chris.
Influential herds that Geoff purchased females from at the beginning included, Westmoor, Upsall, Glenisla, Chapelton and Glengloy. Today, 60 Pedigree Beef Shorthorns are run at Stonehills alongside a herd of Lincoln Red, which are put to the Beef Shorthorn bull. The family also run a flock of pedigree Texel, Beltex and Polled Dorset sheep and have recently installed a vending machine near the local village where they sell homegrown Beef Shorthorn beef.
“We are thrilled to have won the National Award for 2024. It’s always great to win a show or do well at a sale but usually it’s with one or two of your best animals. For the herds competition you need a strong type and uniformity running through your entire herd and we are proud that this was recognised by Charles and Sally in our herd.”
Geoff added: “It was a great privilege to be invited to Podehole to accept the award which was presented by HRH the Princess Royal. The Development Day was a fantastic event, and it was great to see members from across the UK in attendance. Credit must be given to Charles, Sally, Harry and the rest of the team at Podehole who put a lot of hard work and dedication in to make it such a success.”