Sheep success for studs as Royal Hobart Show continues

Campania suffolk sheep breeder Brett Stokes has watched with pride as one of his Noble-Lee ewes stood out over the rams to take out Supreme Exhibit at the Royal Hobart Show on Saturday.

First winning Champion Interbreed Ewe she went on to out-score an exceptional poll dorset ram bred by Paul Day of Faraday Park for the trophy.

The ewe’s twin brother was also Champion Suffolk Ram, adding to the show lineage success from stud ram Noble-Lee Ace, bred by Brett back in 2001.

“He was a very good show ram that won at many shows including Royal Melbourne,” Brett said.

“I only had three straws left from that ram and I decided to AI three ewes, resulting in three rams from two of the ewes - the quality of his progeny is still evident,” Brett said.

Brett exhibited four rams and five ewes all up, noting there was good stud representation and plenty of competition to keep him honest.

“It was great to be back at the Showgrounds in the main exhibition building and I’m looking forward to hopefully being in the new pavilion next year.”

He was particularly grateful to his daughter and Bagdad Primary School teacher Laura for putting in the time to prepare the sheep for showing.

Battling wild weather that “nearly blew the black off their wool”, Paul said he tried hard to keep the show stock in the shed to avoid the worst squalls.

“At one point I thought they were all undercover and next thing I know they had escaped into the garden late in the day and were drenched.

“I got them back in and then on Saturday morning the wind was so strong I was able to put them outside and they were quickly blow-dried before the show.”

Entrant numbers in some of the Royal Hobart Show livestock sections are down from last year.

The rabbit and Cavy shows will occur at the Pontville Memorial Hall on Saturday, while the rest of the animal sections will take place next week between October 23 and 25.

Royal Agricultural Society of Tasmania operations general manager Mitch Spong said there were fewer entrant numbers in the stud sheep, beef cattle and dog sections than in previous years.

“It was mainly due to timing,” Mr Sprong said.

“The stud sheep section was run during school holidays this year, so we didn’t have entries from a couple of the schools.

“It was the same for the beef cattle because one of the major school entrants isn’t available this year.”

The Agora and Boer goat sections had also not run over the last couple of years due to a lack of numbers.

“The dairy and mini goat entries have been really strong recently, so we’ve been putting more focus into them,” Mr Spong said.

The show is taking place across multiple venues this year, including the Regatta Grounds and the Goods Shed, due to limited space at the Showgrounds in Glenorchy because of its redevelopment.

“There are only certain venues across the state that can host an agricultural show section,” Mr Spong said.

“So we’ve been forced over the last few years to run the show in a different model whereby we stagger things to allow us to be able to provide competitors with the best possible facilities.”

Mr Spong said it was a logistical challenge having to run the Hobart Show across five different venues.

“But it's one that we’ve really thrived on in the last few years since we’ve been doing it.

“There’s been a lot of lessons ready for the new Showground when we hopefully open it next year.”