Older sheep were the pick of the judges, John Scott and his son, James, in the Virtual Great Yorkshire Show when the ewe, Matt’s Dipsy ET, claimed the Female and Supreme Championship with the Male Champion, Swffryd Diplo ET, in Reserve spot.

“Firstly thank you for asking me to judge the virtual show, it’s not the real thing but I really enjoyed it and I sought a second opinion from son James on more than one occasion,” said Mr Scott, of the Fearn Flock.

“I have no doubt that in the show ring with the benefit of getting to handle sheep the results may vary a bit but I’m fairly sure both my Champion and Reserve would be in the mix for prizes.

“Both had tremendous volume in terms of width and depth but the aged ewe had the X factor which I just couldn’t go past. Just like in the ring sometimes you see an animal during the class stages of judging that you think might make a champion and as soon as I saw her that’s what I thought. She was extremely well balanced and oozed style and class, an excellent example of the breed,” he added.

Dipsy’s breeding features Hackney Corker on to the Clary Supersonic-sired Clary Whoopi-Do, while the Topflite Al Pacino-sired Diplo is out of Hackney Treacle, a Ryder Rooney daughter.

It was a similar story for the two section reserves which were both lambs from Louie Van Geffen. Reserve Female was Geffens Gossip Girl while Reserve Male was Geffens Gypsy King ET, both of which are by Buckles Dick Dastardly.

Jeff and Sue Wilkinson won the shearling ram class with their Edendiack Darius-sired Langlands Frontier ET while the Cornforth family won the shearling ewe class with Bexbel Footloose, by Bailey Brook Chief.