Anglesey Show – 13th August 2025

For the fourth year in a row entries were up in the Bluefaced Leicester section of the Anglesey show. Judge Matthew Seed travelled all the way down from Aberdeenshire to cast his expert eye over proceedings, and spectators had come from as far as county Durham to check he did his work well!

Rising to the top, successfully defending his title, was Alfie Benbow from the Borderland flock. As it was last year, the champion came from the shearling tup class. This strong, powerful sheep, full of bone with lovely white hair was Blacket House T25, which was bought at Builth last year for the bargain price of 900gns. He’s a son of the good breeding Woodcroft P3, and he’ll have a busy back end having a good portion of the ewes in both the Borderland and Gornal flocks.

Standing reserve was the female champion from Dewi and Meinir Parry of the Nant-y-Glyd flock. This was the winning aged ewe, a one crop, Nant-y-Glyd S14, who was having her first outing at the Anglesey show. She was no stranger to the showring though, having been 4^th at the Royal Welsh as a lamb and 3^rd there last year as a gimmer. This daughter of Leadburnlea M3 has had a good start to her breeding career too, her tup lamb stood second in its class earlier in the day and will be pen leader for the flock at Builth next month.

Reserve male champion was a stonking tup lamb from the Cernyw flock of Elfyn Owen. This lamb, Cernyw V8, was full of presence, colour and length with a great skin. He’s a son of Elfyn’s tremendous home bred stock tup, Cernyw R1, and the lamb’s grandmother, Cernyw L40, was in the flock’s show team for many years. This lamb will be headed to the Builth sale in September, along with a whopping fifteen other lambs from the flock, and he’s sure to garner a lot of well deserved attention.

The reserve female champion was the second prize aged ewe from show stalwarts the Roberts family, Myfyrian. The short journey to the show, from just down the road in Gaerwen, was worth it for this two crop daughter of Lowes Fell M1. She is Myfyrian R23, and the judge was extremely impressed by the power she possessed throughout and the easy condition she was holding.

The Roberts family also had success in the aged tup class. Like the shearling, this huge ram was bred by Dewi Williams, who’s sheep are proving their worth everywhere at the minute, as he also bred Aled Jones’ champion from the previous weekend’s progeny show! The class winner here was a three shear, Blacket House R8, a son of the very successful Medwyn N2, which Myrfyn picked up at Builth a few years back for 1800gns. It looks to have been money well invested as the tup was as bright as ever with superb scale, and all three of Myrfyn, Jayne and Gareth reported how pleased they are with his lambs.

The largest class of the day was the gimmer class, won by the Parrys with Nant-y-Glyd T15. She was following up from a decent day out at the progeny show where she’d stood third in the individual class and been part of the first prize group of three gimmers by the same sire. She’s sired by the Philiphaugh R1 who was bought out of Kelso for £1800 a couple of years back. He’s breeding consistently, as the first four gimmers in the class were sired by him, all of them with the same stamp of sharp outlooks and good colour.

The last of the individual classes, the ewe lambs, was also a hotly contested affair. Taking the spoils was the Davies family with Gornal V6. She is a very powerful daughter of the homebred Gornal S27, who himself is packed with Gornal genetics. Alfie is trying to convince his taid to offer this lamb up for sale at the Blue Belles at Carlisle in January, and she’ll certainly be worth a look if he wins the debate!

The group of three was won by the Nant-y-Glyd flock with three lambs by Piel View T1. They weren’t the biggest group in the ring by a long chalk, but they were like peas in a pod and that’s what swayed Matthew’s decision.