Calderdale cattlemen claimed both championship and reserve championship honours on “Craven Champions Day,” the annual high profile show and sale of store cattle with future show potential at Craven Cattle Marts’ Skipton Auction Mart. (Wed, February 14).

Adrian Leach with his Skipton store cattle with show potential champion.

Adrian Leach, of Owlers Farm, Shackleton Hill, Hebden Bridge, landed supreme championship honours with his nine-month-old Belgian Blue-cross heifer, while fellow Hebden Bridge farmer, Brian Lund, of Walshaw Farm, took the reserve title with an eight-month-old Parthenais-cross heifer.

The champion, home-bred out of a Gelbvieh-cross cow, is by the same sire as Adrian’s title-winning top-priced Belgian Blue heifer at the Spring 2006 Skipton show of store cattle with show potential. This year’s victor, which headed the non halter-led section, sold for £1,100 to a show man from Lancashire.

Top price of the day at £1,420 went to a Belgian Blue heifer from Kath Saffrey, of Halton West, sold to RA & NJ Wheelwright, of Halifax, who also paid £840 for Brian Lund’s home-bred reserve show champion, best of the halter-led entries and by a prolific sire in the Grimsby-based Willow Green herd.

A total of 70 budding bovine stars of the future, a record entry, took part in this well-established event on the North of England show circuit. Past shows have seen many Skipton-bought cattle go on to bigger and better things in exhibition arenas across the length and breadth of the country.

Judge Bob Kingston, from Bridgewater, Somerset, said the show had produced some superb quality entries. “Both the champion and reserve stood out on weight, size and prettiness. By the time they get to Christmas, they will be just as they should be. I judged them on this potential,” he said.

JC Walker & Son, of Brennand Farm, Dunsop Bridge, bidding for an unprecedented third consecutive supreme championship success at the show, this year had to settle for reserve title honours in the halter-led classes with a home-bred Belgian Blue-cross heifer, a full sister to their 2006 champion. It sold for £700 to CR Nicholson, of Cawthorne.

Reserve champion in the non-haltered classes was a Continental heifer from W&M Orme, of Hawes, sold for £610 to a buyer from Somerset.

The Charolais championship went to Coverhead Farms at Leyburn, with a home-bred 13-month-old heifer – her grand sire is the 28,000 guineas Maerdy Prime - exhibited by farm manager David Maughan. She made £760 when bought by CR Nicholson.

The show offered £800 in prize money, donated by six sponsors - the North East Limousin Breeders Club, the Lancashire and Yorkshire Charolais Breeders Club, BOCM Pauls, KW Alternative Feeds, Pfizer Animal Health and agricultural merchant’s agent Janet Sheard.

Held alongside the fortnightly sale of almost 800 store and breeding cattle, the day attracted a phenomenal public turnout and many satisfied sellers and buyers, in particular purchasers seeking quality animals for the 2007 show circuits.

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