£4500 for Winter Fair champion
Record entries and a two-day attendance of 26,058 – the second highest achieved by the event – were among the highlights of the twentieth Royal Welsh Winter Fair which also saw the supreme cattle champion sell for £4500 in the auction ring.
The overall winner was the top-placed steer, Dick Turpin, a 536kg British Blue-sired Limousin cross bred by John Richardson of Penrith and owned by Phil and Sharon Sellers of Kilburn, near Belper, Derbyshire. The couple then went on to buy the Reserve Baby Beef Champion for £4600.
The Sellers keep around 10 cattle mainly for showing as well as for their mobile catering outlets. They are long-time competitors at the Winter Fair having shown at every one, finishing reserve overall on three occasions.
The judge, Simon David of Minehead, Somerset, said he had difficulty separating the final two contenders for the championship. This resulted in Elfed Williams from Sennybridge, Brecon, receiving the reserve rosette for the third time. His heifer champion was a 546kg May 2008 Blonde-sired Limousin cross bred by Andrew Powell of Knighton.
Another entry from the Sellers, a British Blue-Limousin scaling 546kg took the reserve heifer championship and a 486kg nearly pure Limousin from Gilbert Brooke of Alfrick, Worcester, was runner-up for the steer title.
In the auction ring the overall champion made £4500 and was bought by butcher Stuart Roberts of Gowerton, Swansea. The reserve champion went for £3300 to Doug Griffiths of Leintwardine, Herefordshire.
Gloucestershire exhibitor Andrew Bishop a frequent winner in the lamb carcase competition scored once again with an E3L Beltex entry from his Eldersfield-based farm taking the singles championship. It had a live weight of 36kg, a 21kg carcase weight and made £600 at auction.
The pairs championship went to Beltex cross Texels from Dermot Weaver of Hanley Swan, near Worcester. They had a combined live weight of 85kg and 48kg dead, both grading E3 and selling for £620. Runner-up for the pairs title were Dutch Texels from O.P. and A. Beresford, Fenny Bentley, Ashbourne, Derbyshire. One graded E3L and the other E3H.
The reserve single championship went to an E3L Beltex cross from Lewis Edwards, Llandefalle, Brecon.
In the sheep section Andrew and Becky Bishop of Pitfield Farm, Eldersfield, Gloucester, scooped yet another of the season’s major winter fatstock championships. Having competed at every one of the 20 Winter Fairs and collecting three reserve supremes over the years, the top title had always eluded them. This time, however, the judge David Jones, selected their home-bred pair of Texels for the top award and also placed their home-bred Beltex pair in reserve. He later backed his decision by buying the champions at £380 apiece and the reserves for £370 each.
The Fair’s crossbred championship went to Kate Hovers of Trecastle, Brecon, for her Suffolk-Radnors and she also won the award for the most points overall in the sheep section.
There were over 700 entries in the Fair’s horse section and the supreme championship went to Mrs Mandy Jones of Dolgellau for her yearling Welsh Pony Colt, Melau Montana.