5000 schedules out for Winter Fair
Livestock farmers competing at this year’s Royal Welsh Winter Fair have just a few weeks to go before entries close on October 21. Five thousand schedules for the event, which is widely acclaimed as Britain’s best prime stock show, have gone out to producers throughout the UK with details of 178 classes and special awards for cattle, sheep, pigs and horses.
This year’s two-day Winter Fair on November 30 – December 1 will be the twentieth to take place on the showground at Llanelwedd, Builth Wells, since the event was established in 1990. Leading stockmen from across the country will again be competing for a share of the thousands of pounds in prizes offered to the winning entries by the Royal Welsh Agricultural Society and by individual breed societies putting up cash incentives to encourage their members to compete.
This year cattle breed societies are offering incentives of £1000 for the supreme champion if it is bred by an animal of the individual society’s breed and sheep societies are also making generous incentives available to their members.
A highlight of the Fair is the sale of livestock on the second day and with the current keen prices for beef cattle some brisk bidding can be expected for quality stock. The record price for the supreme champion beast stands at £12,500.
A new record price for lambs was established at last year’s Fair when the supreme champions, a pair of Beltex x Beltex, sold for £3400 each. They were purchased on behalf of Asda for one of their supermarket stores in the West Midlands.
The selling of livestock begins with lamb carcasses in the Carcass Hall at 10.30am followed by the sale of sheep at 12 noon and pigs at 2.00pm. Cattle enter the sale ring at 3.00pm, the champion and reserve animals not going under the hammer before 3.15pm. Baby beef animals will be sold last.
The sale always attracts large crowds to the ringside and intending bidders must obtain a buyer’s badge and register with the auctioneers for entry to a reserved seating area located opposite the rostrum. Maximum reserve prices are fixed at £2700 for the supreme champion beast and £2500 for the reserve.