Ian and I made a whirlwind trip to watch the angus judging and catch up with friends at the Sydney Royal. Angus were the feature breed of the show and there was a massive 300 head lineup.
We really enjoyed watching the two full days of beautifully prepared angus cattle. Who doesn’t love watching a champion?
The judge, Mr William McLaren, from Scotland was looking for very moderate framed cattle with depth, thickness, volume and structure. We actually thought that if we were that way inclined our cattle may have tickled his “fancy” (Is that the thing that the Scots hang on their kilt?) anyway, the SAV blood cattle seemed to be prominent amongst the ribbon winners. We injected quite a bit of SAV bloodlines into our herd about thirteen years ago and have certainly benefited from the result. It is certainly good to see the trend heading back to moderate, thicker, deep cattle. The industry is now heading that way albeit slowly.
It’s funny though as it wasn’t so long ago the show winners used to stand up and the owners were lucky to see over their backs on tip toes.
For the run down on the prize winners.
This years Grand Champ of Sydney.
This was in 2004 at World Beef Expo.