The Yorkshire farming family which has agricultural shows in the blood

“We go to Malton and Harrogate every year,” says Craig. “We wouldn’t miss either with our son Matthew and daughter Isla.

"Malton is a proper country show and always seems to get good weather. The Great Yorkshire is where you meet up with all your mates and enjoy the craic.

"Winning or doing well is great, but it’s the friendships you make and the people you see that gives us that buzz.”

Last weekend Craig and Rachel were at North Yorkshire County Show with their good friend James Dennis who is part owner with Rachel of one of this year’s six-strong team of Limousin, Belgian Blue and Galloway crossed stock, and Malton will be their final run out before Harrogate.

“We had a good start to this year’s show season with a champion at Otley Show in May,” says Craig. “But you just don’t know what will happen on the day in the ring.

“This year our team includes a Belgian Blue heifer and Galloway heifer that came from Malcolm Telfer and Helen Claxton in Hexham, which we bought privately; a Belgian Blue bullock that came out of Thirsk livestock market; and a Limousin bullock and heifer that came out of Carlisle.

“The Limousin heifer is sister to a heifer we did a lot of good with two years ago. That’s the one Rachel has bought in partnership with James, who’s very much part of our team.

"James started showing with us when we were reserve champion at the Great Yorkshire Show a few years back.

“Our sixth animal in the team is one we’ve bred ourselves, a homebred calf called Lucky, which we hope will be, and will be in the junior classes.

"We’ve always bought stock for showing, so this is something different for us.”

Craig started showing cattle in 1993 with top cattle show people Diane Whiteley and Jim Courts. The Mudd & Bentley show team hit the ground running in 2003.

Twenty-two years on Craig says he’s now giving youth its head in the show rings, even though he’s only in his mid-40s, with James, and Craig and Rachel’s son Matthew now parading the stock.

“If us old ‘uns don’t step back and let young ‘uns in, there isn’t going to be a future for them. The way I look at it now, I just feed them and take them to the shows and let James, Matthew and now Isla do their stuff.

"They’re all great, but don’t tell them I’ve said that.

“Matthew won the Young Handlers at Pateley (Nidderdale Show) and at the Great Yorkshire; and James has already shown several winners for us including Milly who has already been champion heifer at Otley this year.”

Showing cattle is Craig and Rachel’s passion away from their grassland farm where they run a dairy herd and a sheep farming enterprise that sees Matthew looking after the sheep, as well as working off farm for an agricultural contractor. Rachel works in a children’s nursery in Knayton.

“We don’t spend massive amounts on beasts for showing,” says Rachel. “But we do spend a bit more on beasts than we did because of beef prices going up.

“Our best result so far was reserve commercial champion overall with a Limousin steer called Blackjack,” says Craig.

“We’ve also had steer champion at Harrogate in 2016; reserve steer champion there in 2017; and we have done well at Malton.

Craig and Rachel farm in partnership with Craig’s mum Mary.

They have around 400 acres with 165 acres tenanted from Kepwick Estate at The Gables; 160 acres owned at Carr Cote, Laskill; 40 acres rented from James’ mum and other land.

One of the main ways in which the couple have been able to get off the farm more easily to attend shows has been the incorporation of robotic milking, using three Lely Astronauts on their herd of predominantly black and white cows.

“The robots, which we put in some years ago, have made a massive difference. It is having them that gave us the flexibility to go showing as we’re not tied to being back for milking.

"All my dad Colin, who passed away four years ago, had said when he was here, was he wanted us to have a life around the cows.

“It all works well for the cows and us. The herd health is a lot better and the cows are free to do as they please.

"They’re not tied to twice or three times a day milking, they just come to the robot when they want, milk and go and lie down again. It’s not a bad life.

“They’ve been inside nearly thirteen years. The dry cows, heifers and calves go outside. We just keep the milkers inside. On average they go to the robot 3.1 times a day.

“We’re no longer tied to getting up for milking at 5 o’clock in a morning and back in the parlour at five at night.”

Craig is looking to take his number of milking cows up to 150, which will see the herd increase to around 175 cows overall, to take the robots closer to capacity, and also because of a better price through being part of the Arla European farmers group and no longer suffering the horrendous fluctuations that existed until nearly a decade ago.

“At one time we were receiving 20 pence per litre. Now we get 45p per litre. The milk price had to go up or there was going to be nobody producing it. There’s a future in the job now.

“I’m trying to grow the dairy herd and we have more heifers than we’ve ever had. We don’t do too bad on milk yield per cow. Last year they averaged 9800 litres.

"We averaged nearly 11,000 one year but last year we had loads of grass but it was poor quality on account of the weather.”

Craig puts around 40-50 of his dairy herd to sexed semen using Genus RMS and has just started with sexed Belgian Blue semen for the rest of the herd.

“We want female dairy calves to provide replacements for the herd and male beef calves because when we did the maths the extra cost of the Belgian Blue sexed semen was paid back through the price of calves at market.

"At the moment, threequarters of our calves go to Darlington livestock market at 8-12 weeks because calves are a good trade. We sell others at 12-13 months.”

Matthew would like to increase sheep numbers.

“We currently have around 380 breeding ewes which are Mules and continentals put to Suffolk, Charollais and Texel tups. We lamb in April. I want to push to 450-500 breeding ewes. A lot of our Charollais and Charollais-cross-Beltex tups are bred by James.”