GYS: Grandest of livestock displays as dairy champion named

The supreme dairy champion, a Shorthorn known as Churchroyd Peggy owned by IRG Collins & Partners pictured with Ian Collins & Mary Collins from Dewsbury.

The Collins’, from near Dewsbury, have taken the supreme dairy cattle championship with their Shorthorn third-calver Church Royd Peggy 19.

“We won reserve last year, so we’ve done one better,” said Ian Collins, who runs Whitley’s Church Farm with his mother Mary and sister Wendy. “It’s brilliant.

“This is one for the ‘old man upstairs’, my father Richard who died 12 years ago.

“He was a big supporter, him and my mother started it all. We’ve been trying for 40 years.”

The family, the fourth generation to keep cows at Church Farm, have been named as reserve champions once before but never as supreme.

Church Royd Peggy 19 has taken the Dairy Shorthorn breed championship title for each of the past two years and was breed champion at the national show for three years in a row. She also won an interbreed title at Cheshire Show.

“She’s certainly one of, if not the best, Shorthorn I’ve seen,” said Mr Collins. “She’s from a great cow family, we’ve been breeding 30 years. It’s not a fluke. It’s good breeding. “

Reserve champion was Robert and Elaine Butterfield, of Lingham Farm in Bentham, Lancashire, with Newbirks Jazz 1584, a three-year-old Holstein second calver.

After the championship was decided it was time for hundreds of prized cattle, from both dairy and beef classes, to fill the main ring for one of the most impressive sights of the show, the grand cattle parade, which attracted hundreds of spectators.