Debutants and an old master record victory in the auction ring

Mr Stevenson, of Elsing Bottom Farm, Farnley, has not shown at Skipton Auction Mart for well over a decade but emerged from the ring as prime cattle winner.

Another unsuspecting exhibitor tasted triumph too, with husband and wife Brian and Lisa Hall, of Scaleber Farm, Gargrave, who were entering lambs into the prize show at the North Yorkshire venue for the first time winning the prime lamb title.

Mr Stevenson bred both the sire, from his ‘Richphill’ stock bull lines, and dam of the supreme champion – the first prize 630kg British Blue-x-Limousin steer, which fell for the day’s leading price of £1,717, or 272.5p/kg, to James Robertshaw, of Keelham Farm Shop in Thornton, Bradford.

The business, which is on track to open a new flagship outlet in Gargrave Road, Skipton, adjoining the auction mart site, in August this year, remains the single most prolific buyer of prime champions and prize winners at the North Yorkshire venue.

The Halls clinched a debut prime lamb championship at the first attempt with their first prize 42kg Beltex-cross pen of five lambs, which also topped the selling prices when falling at £130 per head, or 309.5p/kg, to another regular buyer Anthony Swales, for his Knavesmire Butchers shop in York.

Mr and Mrs Hall, who breed Texel and Beltex lambs along with dairy replacement heifers, sell all their lambs at Skipton.