English Winter Fair

Sunday 20th November 2022

It was two at the top and a hat-trick of wins for Robert Garth and Sarah Priestley as they claimed their third Supreme Championship on the trot with a pair of pure-bred Beltex lambs at the English Winter Fair at Stafford over the weekend.

Following on from their wins at the Borderway AgriExpo and AgriFest South West, the pair of ewe lambs by Todhall Freddy named Keasden Hot To Trot ET and Keasden Hanky Panky, and are out of Glantre and Bishops ewes, respectively.

“The Champion pair had everything I was looking for – conformation, fat cover and length,” said the judge, Chris Wright, a meat wholesaler from near Boston who has a throughput of 400-600 lambs per week and also runs the Brothertoft Flock of pedigree Beltex.

With a total of seven pairs here, Robert and Sarah notched up their first double by claiming the Reserve Supreme ticket with their winning duo from the trimmed wether class which were again pures but this time by a Paul Slater tup. One of these won the single class at the AgriExpo but this was the first time they were shown as a pair and were presented in the Championship by Robert’s eldest two children, Matthew and Libby, with youngest Rosie also lending a helping hand.

It was a great couple of days for Robert as he also won the trimmed ewe lamb class as well as the single butchers’ lamb class.

The large entry of untrimmed lambs saw Anthony and Emma Thompson’s 80-90kg pair take Untrimmed Championship with the 90-100kg pair from John Hall and family stand Reserve.

In the Carcase section, David Wadland claimed the Championship with a pure Beltex by a home-bred sire that graded E4L and weighed 57kg live and 37.3kg dead, giving a whopping 65.4% kill out percentage.

“The Champion had great length, conformation and fat class – just the sort we’d look to produce with the length needed for Barnsley Chops,” commented the judge, David Morland, of Tebay Services.

Reserve went to an E3L entry from the Blandford family with the top Saddle of Lamb ticket going to C & M Morris.

Toby Lawton headed up the trio of live/dead lambs with a group by a Boothlow tup bought last year.

Other Beltex highlights including wins in the remaining three untrimmed weights classes for the Hall family as well as the Young Farmers Class for April Skelton; the novice class for A Hill; and the RABI single butchers’ lamb for Goodwood Estate.