Welsh Winter Fair

Monday 28th November 2022

History was made at the Welsh Winter Fair when the Hall family from Inglewood Edge, Cumbria, secured their third Supreme Championship in the sheep section but what made the title even more noteworthy was the fact that they also landed the Reserve Supreme ticket on all three occasions.

Leading the way was their winning Butchers’ Weights duo, a 90.5kg pair by the same Hackney Countdown ET ram that sired the family’s live and export carcase champion at the Premier Meat Exhibition just a couple of weeks previously. Bred from nearly pure home-bred ewes and brought out by John Hall’s daughter, Joanne, and stockman, Johnny Aiken, they also won their class at the English Winter Fair. They went on to sell for £300 apiece.

“The Champion lambs were just what I wanted and the kind I liked to sell,” commented the judge of the Championships, Glyn Owens, former auctioneer at Ruthin. “They had a good finish on them with great shape and were also a matching pair which is important. They were the perfect Champion pair with that extra bit of length over the Reserve.”

Going on to stand Reserve Supreme was the Halls’ winning pair from the Pure Continental section which were this time by the Faughhill El Capitan ET ram that sired a lot of the family’s winning pairs during last year’s show circuit. This pair realised £350.

Beltex breeding dominated the show and with no other breeds beating Beltex-sired lambs in any of the Butchers’ Weight classes, an impressive line-up of 16 lambs in the Championship were by Beltex rams. Taking the Reserve ticket here and selling for £340 was a pair by Todhall Freddy from Robert Garth and Sarah Priestley, who have a great season with Freddy-sired lambs.

Steffan Thomas led the Wales YFC Best Prime Lamb Producer section with his pair of pure Beltex lambs, following on from his Reserve here last year.

As well as in the live ring, Beltex-sired lambs dominated the Carcase Competition where regular winners were to the fore as Simon Blandford and Family claimed the Single Championship with Gwynne and Linda Davies in Reserve with their entry that was also Best Bred in Wales. The former sold for £400 while the latter realised £600.

In the pairs section it was N and L Standring that secured the top ticket with an E3L pair that realised £400 each. Reserve was an E3L pair from IT Davies and Family that sold for £370.