South West Progeny Show – Traditional Type

A lovely, relaxed Saturday was had by all who attended the South West Progeny Show at Tavistock Livestock Centre, by kind permission of Stags.  Our judge for the day was Phil Medland (Tavy Flock).  We are very grateful to him for giving up his time to pick our prize winners.

For only the second time in the South West area, exhibitors enjoyed the opportunity to show their Leicesters and progeny with enough entries to make for a spirited but friendly competition in both the Traditional and Crossing camps.

First up were the Traditionals with a very strong class of gimmer shearlings.  After a great deal of deliberation, Mr Medland gave top spot to Helen Havill’s beautifully presented shearling, Martin Grange S008 by the Carrog K015.  Dick Montague followed in second place with his homebred Ashdown S013 with Helen taking third with another homebred shearling Martin Grange S007.

A lovely pair of gimmer lambs from Helen Havill took first and second in their class – Martin Grange T030 and T031 respectively, both sired by Ashes R009.

Moving onto the tup classes, another good and varied entry in the shearling section made for more deep thinking for our judge.  His final decision put Killington S001, bred and exhibited by Brian Dallyn, in first place, with second going to Helen Havill with her own Martin Grange S041.  Third spot was claimed by an Ebford shearling, S002.  This was exhibited by Lucy Bosley who had purchased him previously.  Lucy is just starting with Leicesters and has some promising stock coming forward.

In the tup lamb class, Helen Havill again swept the board with first and second place going to her Martin Grange T002 and T003 respectively.  Again, both are sired by Ashes R009.

The progeny classes were up next, the first of which was gimmer shearlings.  Dick Montague was placed first with his shearling from class 1, joined by Ashdown S010.  In second place, was Helen Havill with Martin Grange S006 and S007 and third was Lucy Bosley exhibiting Bradwell/Hunt S005 and S006 which again, she’s purchased this year as a basis for her new Leicester flock.

Both the top spots in the gimmer lamb and tup lamb pairs section were taken by Helen Havill, showing lambs she’d shown in earlier classes that day.

The final championships were closely fought – the male champion went to Brian Dallyn and his shearling tup, Killington S001 with reserve going to Helen Havill’s tup lamb, Martin Grange T002.  Helen took both champion and reserve in the females with her ewe lamb (T030) pipping her Martin Grange shearling (S008) to the post.

For the groups, Dick Montague’s homebred gimmer shearlings, like peas in a pod, took the overall champion group, with Helen Havill’s gimmer lambs, T30 and T31 in reserve spot.  This success for Dick is a fitting finale for him as it marks his retirement from keeping Leicesters.  He’ll be missed very much on the showing circuit, but we hope that we’ll continue to see him at events in the future.

A quick breather for the judge before he continued with the Crossing Section….