Princess Royal opens 'England's best' show to cloudy skies and big crowds (VIDEO)

An early visitor was The Princess Royal, who chatted to organisers and troops from the Yorkshire Regiment.

The closure of competing shows has turned the Great Yorkshire into the leading event of its kind in England, show director Bill Cowling said yesterday.

He said the number of foreign delegations wanting to attend, the number of livestock entries, and the number and size of trade exhibitions, all reflected the show's growing status.

Since last year's show, he said, the Royal Show in Warwickshire had been held for the last time; the Leicestershire had gone and the Royal Lancashire had failed to revive itself after being off the calendar for two years.

The Staffordshire and West Midlands have been reduced to a different form under a different name and the Lowther Horse Trials, at Penrith, have been cancelled.

One result was record entries in eight of the 24 competitive sections at the Yorkshire – cattle, sheep, pigs, angora goats, poultry, pigeons, horse-shoeing and cheese.

The downside was some disappointment among potential exhibitors.

All the sheep had been squeezed in, by re-organisation, but it had been impossible to make space for all the possible cattle entries, despite an extra 100 places in the permanent housing lines.

Mr Cowling said: "We were into a waiting list situation five weeks before entries closed, which is unheard of in agricultural show circles.

"We have always operated first-come first-served before – whether from Harrogate or Hampshire – and we thought it was the fairest way to handle things this year. But it did cause some discontent and we will see if we can see a better way of doing it."

In the end, he said, all Yorkshire applicants who wanted a place had been offered one.

But some had turned the offer down, because they were not given the number of places they wanted, or had made other plans, or had taken offence at being made to queue.

Yesterday Mr Cowling said he was "disappointed" in the Department of the Environment Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) response to his request for a Minister to attend in light of show's position as the leading event in the country.

The new Secretary of State at the department, Caroline Spelman, now plans to attend on Thursday afternoon – the final afternoon of the three-day event.

This has caused disappointment as in the past, a senior government minister has attended on the opening morning to help generate publicity.

Mr Cowling said: "I am disappointed in the Defra machine. It would seem that after making supportive noises in opposition, the machine has swallowed up the Conservatives the same way it swallowed up the Labour Party.

"It is a new administration and there is a lot of controversial legislation going through and it may work out that we get a very limited presence because of it."

Defra last night insisted that Ms Spelman would be attending.

"The Secretary of State is very much looking forward to attending the Yorkshire Show on Thursday," a spokesman said. "Government business precludes her from attending earlier."