Antrim Progeny Show

Northern Ireland Progeny Show – Kindly Hosted by Antrim Show

Saturday 26^th July, 2025

The day dawned under grey skies a total contrast to last year’s show where judging took place under wall to wall sunshine.  The man in the middle this year was Mr Jamie Pirie, Blarnavaid who made the journey across the Irish Sea from his home in Scotland to take on the Judging duties.

First up were the individual classes and Jamie had to wait till the last of the six classes before his overall champion made her appearance in the ring.

This was a striking ewe lamb from the Temain team of Graham & Julie Loughery, she is sired by 4358/R001 Beeches Wingman, Wingman was purchased from Hawes in 2022 for £14,000 and has bred exceptionally well throughout the flock.  This was her first outing into the show ring and a very successful one it was too as she then paired up with ET sister to take the overall champion progeny group title, their dam is the highly decorated 4342/R070 Temain Rosie who herself was breed champion and interbreed champion at Antrim Show in 2023.  Two ET brothers will be venturing to the backend sales this year.

Reserve overall champion in the individual classes was an exceptional ram lamb from Michelle Wright, Mullaghwee, he is sired by 4367/S001 Drummuck Hotshot.  The dam is by Starbog S001 who was part of group of 3 progeny overall champions in 2022 and she went on to be overall champion in Antrim in the same year.

Finding success in the remaining individual classes were Eoin Loughran, Hilltop Farm taking the first prize in the aged ram class.  Robbie Topping, Rocklynn went home with the red rosette from the shearling ram class.  In the female classes Temain again found themselves among the red tickets taking first prize in the aged ewe class.  Ian Montgomery had his first success of the day taking first place in the gimmer class with his homebred Mistyburn 4691/T031 sired by Giants Causeway Armani 4456/S003, she was reserve champion at Balmoral show and followed this up taking overall champion at both Ballymoney and Ballymena shows this year.

In the progeny classes reserve champion group went to Ian Montgomery, Mistyburn with his homebred pair of Armani Daughters 4691/T030 & 4691/T031, T030 has been successfully shown last year taking the overall championship at the Balmoral Show as a lamb.  Both gimmers will be kept within the flock for hopefully breeding future champions.

Michelle Wright took the first place in the ram lamb group class with her group of three sharp ram lambs all sired by 4367/S001 Drummuck Hotshot.  This was the same results as last year with all three sired by Hotshot and 2 out of the same ewe, these three ram lambs will all be entered for sale at the export sale in Ballymena this September.

The Temain team came up trumps again in the group of 3 hoggets,  all sired by Giants Causeway Armani 4456/S003 taking home the red ticket.  Giants Causeway Armani 4456/S003 also sired the first prize group of three ewe lambs which are all ET sisters by the first prize ewe she is sired by Beeches Wingman and there will be 3 ET brothers destined for the backend sales.

To round off the day was a show for the young handlers and this brought more success for the Montgomery family with daughter Amelia taking first place in the 6 to 10 age group and then going on to take the overall championship rosette closely followed by brother Matthew who took the reserve championship.

Many thanks to all the members who took the time to enter the show and brought out a tremendous show of sheep.