Royal Adelaide Show 2018: Borders, White Suffolks dominate interbreed

Brayden and Lochie Gilmore, Oberon, NSW, went from winning their first royal show broadribbon with their Premier stud in the White Suffolk judging, to taking out supreme ram of the show and selling it at the elite sale for $43,000. 

Brayden said they were keen to make the 1200-kilometre trip to Adelaide this year as he thought his ram – Premier Meat Machine – was in with a shot at the big prize. 

“We knew from a young age that the ram had huge potential,” he said.

The August 2017-drop ram, weighing 134.5 kilograms, scanned 9.5 millimetres of fat, had an eye muscle depth of 47mm and was reserve champion White Suffolk at the NSW Sheep Show in Dubbo earlier this year. 

Meat Machine was by a Premier ram sold at the 2016 Elite Stud Sale for $4000 to Westleigh White Suffolks, Beaufort, Vic, and Brayden said they had used that sire again for their 2018 joining. 

Second to the White Suffolk ram was Coolawang Border Leicester’s champion long wool ram.

The 106.5kg ram came from the 1.5 years old class, measuring 8mm fat depth, 42.5EMD and 7.7kg for post-weaning weight.

The awards were flipped in the ewe judging, with the champion long wool Border Leicester sashed supreme ahead of the champion short wool White Suffolk. 

The Border Leicester ewe was a July 2016-drop daughter of Jackson Iron Man, weighing 112kg, with 16mm fat, 37EMD and was rearing three-week-old twin lambs. 

The ewe took home many awards as a yearling in 2017, winning reserve junior champion ewe at the Australian Sheep & Wool Show, Bendigo, Vic, champion ewe at Hamilton Sheepvention, Vic, and reserve champion ewe at Adelaide. 

But it was as a two-year-old dam it really came into its own, crowned supreme long wool exhibit at this year’s ASWS, and supreme long wool ewe at Hamilton Sheepvention last month. 

The champion short wool ewe, exhibited by the Shillabeer family, Wingamin stud, Karoonda, was an April 2017-drop White Suffolk weighing 1080kg, with 11.5mm fat and 45EMD.