Young stars shine at Royal Welsh
This year’s Royal Welsh was another successful, if scorching, show. And some of the competitors turning up the heat were in the junior competitions. Hayley Parrott caught up with three of the young champions.
Showing signs of many more rosettes to come
“This is the first sash I have won that I can keep,” says Flora Amery, the 19-year-old awarded The Eifion Green Award in the interbreed beef young handler competition.
“I always said I won’t stop showing until I get a sash, but I am not stopping yet.”
See also: Royal Welsh Show 2016 – the heatwave in pictures
Before selling up a couple of years ago, Flora’s family had a Hereford herd for eight years and she says it was their stockman George Bowen who trained her up. “He taught me everything I know.
“I got into showing as my parents got into it. I was always out there washing them and prepping them.”
After doing a summer with Normanton Herefords last year, Royal Agricultural University student Flora is now working as a freelance assistant stockman in the holidays from studying.
The fluent Spanish speaker is working towards a degree in International Business Management and Mandarin, which she hopes she will be able to use to set up her own agricultural consultancy business eventually.
Flora speaks passionately about showing and its contribution to agriculture. “It’s good because the public get to see the cattle and get to know more about agriculture. It’s also great publicity for the Hereford breed.
“I just love showing; I love the social side. Even in horrible hot weather like this, it’s like a big team. We’re like one big family in the Hereford lines.”
And being a Welsh girl, from Llandeilo, Carmarthen, the Royal Welsh is one of her favourites.
In the young handler competition, she was showing a young heifer called Easter, named after the time of year she was born in 2014, from Heather Whittaker’s Coley Hereford herd.
“She was so well behaved,” says Flora, “she got a bit touchy in one corner; I think it was because she could see the shade.”
Her showing summer will continue with the Border Union Show in Kelso followed by Tenbury Countryside Show, where she achieved her first ever champion young handler title in her second year of showing, and the Moreton-in-Marsh show.
And even though she has got her sash now, she plans to keep learning, getting involved with the Hereford Society’s new youth development events, and improving her showmanship skills. “I don’t think you can ever stop learning,” she says.
Flora’s top tips for other young handlers
- Look at the judge
Keep your eyes on the judge the whole time you’re in the ring, she says, even though “you do feel awkward looking at them all the time”. You can flick to the animal to check they’re OK and check where you’re going, but you have to make lots of eye contact with the judge. “I sometimes get told off for scowling because I am concentrating so hard, so my mum pulls funny faces from the side of the ring to make me smile!”
- Don’t set the feet straight away
“Don’t jump straight in with setting the feet,” she advises. When called up to the judge, let the animal stand, give them a scratch to settle them, then set their feet.
- Showing starts outside the ring
“The judge is watching you before you get into the ring,” says Flora, so you have to do everything yourself. “You have to be on the ball from the start and do it all yourself, maybe getting it wrong sometimes, but learning from it.”
- “A clean white coat always helps”
Flora’s morning at the Royal Welsh before her class
6am – Rise and shine
With earlier classes, Flora would get up earlier, but she had a lie-in until 6am before her 11am competition. “You have to be up early because you don’t know what state they’re going to be in when you wake up. They might have pooped and lay in it, or got their white bits all dirty, so you have to leave time to wash, dry and prep them.”
8am – Shampoo time
This was a bit later than Flora would usually begin washing, but she didn’t want her heifer stood about getting hot in the heatwave at this year’s show.
10am – Grooming in the shade
This was time for Easter the heifer’s blow dry and combing. “You comb them to sculpt the body,” says Flora. “You brush them up to accentuate their good bits and help hide any small flaws. A good stockman will do it so you don’t even know they’re done it.”
11am – Showtime
Flora held Easter in the cattle lines until right at the last minute, to keep her out of the midday sun on the ring. She had to run back to the lines to get her bucket of grooming gear because she noticed Easter’s hair had been flattened as she brushed against something and she’d had a poo on the walk down, so Flora wanted to do some last-minute preening before they entered the ring.
Shedding success for Welsh youngster and his dog
It was third time lucky for young Rhion Owen in the young handler competition of the sheepdog trials. After missing out on the top spot last year, the Penysarn lad said that he was hoping this was his year.
At only 14 years old, Rhion was the youngest of the finalists and staved off competition from three much older competitors. He entered the ring with eight-year-old Border Collie Ross by his side and said that the credit should mainly go to him.
“The dog worked well. It’s mostly him, he’s a good listener,” he says. While he thought the shedding could have gone a bit better, he was happy and relieved to have completed the course and won the competition.
His interest in sheepdog trialling began when he went to visit a neighbour for English lessons a few years back. His tutor’s husband, Gwynfor Owen, introduced him to the sport and became his trainer, and Rhion’s mum says that trialling has been the best thing yet for Rhion’s English-speaking because he needs the language to communicate at the competitions.
Now it is on to a National competition in Corwen next week before starting his GCSEs in September. The ultimate goal is to win at an international level in sheepdog trials and return home to the family dairy, beef and sheep farm.
A speedy and tidy win with the shearing blades
On day two of the show, the ever-packed shearing centre played host to the junior championships. Starting with 48 competitors, just six made the final round and The Alun Evans Annual Award was won by 24-year-old Dafydd Williams.
The competitors, all under 26, had to shear five lambs. Dafydd was speedy, completing the pen in the second fastest time of six minutes and 38 seconds.
He says he was “a bit shocked” to have won. He knew his time was good, even though his fifth animal was a bit of a wriggler, but didn’t know how his neatness would be scored. “I suppose I must have been neat, though, otherwise I wouldn’t have won,” says Dafyfdd, who has competed at the Royal Welsh Show since 2013.
He began shearing on the beef and sheep farm at home in Pen-Llyn, north Wales, and does a bit every year on contract. He says that he’s “hooked” and one of the reasons is because “the more you do, the better you get”.
His advice to other junior shearers would be to “listen to the advice of the guys there to teach you” and “don’t lose your head”. If you have a difficult animal, you’ve got to have “a lot of heart” and just keep going, he says.