- Overall champion
- Reserve overall champion
- Baby beef champion
- Heifer champion and reserve heifer champion
- Steer champion and reserve steer champion
It was a day of Limousin domination in the Spring Spectacular Show at the National Beef Association’s Beef Expo 2015, York, with Limousin sired animals picking up all the major titles under judges Wilson Peters, Crieff Perthshire, and Craig Robertson, Pitlochry, Perthshire.
Heading up a quality field of more than 150 show cattle were Ruthin, Wales-based brothers Rhidian and Cai Edwards, entered under T C Edwards and Sons, Corwen, Denbighshire, when they took the event’s Supreme Championship with their Limousin cross heifer Sooty.
This 547kg entry was bred by the Bowen family and was on her first show outing of the year. Last shown at the Royal Welsh Winter Fair last year, where she picked up a third prize, Sooty now heads on to Cheshire County Show and then heads to a number of local shows in North Wales.
Commenting on his champion, Wilson Peters said: “I was looking for a champion that fitted the bill for a high street butcher’s beast and she met that criteria completely with a loin full of meat, a balanced top and a great set of legs with a cracking head to match.”
Doubling up at the top of the line for the Limousin breed was Bourne, Lincolnshire-based Trevor Lyon at the halter of his, Linda and son Johnny’s Steer Champion Midnight Black. Weighing in at 579kg, this one is by former stock bull Ironstone Enigma and out of the same dam as the successful show heifer Temptation.
Another which saw prize winning action last winter, Midnight Black was first at English Winter Fair and homebred calf champion, as well as being a class winner at East of England Smithfield Festival last December. He next heads to Hertfordshire County and Suffolk shows next week.
Following on in superb form, and taking the Reserve Heifer championship, were Aycliffe, Co Durham-based Gordon, Julie and son Tim Sedgewick with Priceless, a homebred 511kg heifer by the herd’s stock bull Confluence Fadell.
Bred from a former show heifer, this one has come through from a tough start having lost her dam early on. She was also a winner last winter, being the baby beef champion at LiveScot and on her first outing of this season was commercial and interbreed champion at Otley last week. She next heads on to Northumberland and Great Yorkshire.
The Reserve Steer championship honours headed back to Wales with the Edwards family, with Cai Edwards leading dad, Gwyn, and, uncle, Erfyl Edwards’ 430kg Limousin steer Un Bach. Bred by the Lewis family, Pumsaint, this one is on his first outing this year and then next heads to Cheshire Show.
It was a case of déjà vu in the Baby Beef championship when fellow Welshman Tecwyn Jones took the overall championship with his heifer Black Beauty.
Like Tecwyn’s former show heifers of the same name this one next heads on to the Royal Welsh. Homebred and sired by Ronick Hawk, Black Beauty is out of a British Blue x Limousin dam and weighed in 420kg.
She was described by judge Craig Robertson as: “an incredibly flashy heifer, with great style, locomotion and presence”.
Commenting on the breed’s success in the Spring Spectacular, British Limousin Cattle Society Chief Executive Iain Kerr said it was a credit to the exhibitors that Limousin sired animals had fared so well. “The Limousin breed has built its name around being the Carcase Breed and the cattle on show here were a tremendous reflection of that.
The Limousin bull sales in the May period have been very strong and this has been due to the demand for and profitability of Limousin cross cattle in livestock markets across the UK week in, week out,” he said.
Away from the show ring the Society’s breed’s stand was a hive of activity throughout the day, with visitors stopping to admire an impressive line-up of Limousin stock and to learn of the latest technical developments in the breed.
