Four out of five championships – and a reserve championship – gave Turriff Aberdeen-Angus breeders, Hamish and Margaret Sclater, Denhead, Dunlugas, Turriff, a red letter day on Saturday at the Scotia Homes Black Beauty Bonanza show of Aberdeen-Angus cattle at Thainstone Centre, Inverurie.

Mr and Mrs Sclater, owners of the Deveron herd, scored a remarkable triumph by carrying off the heifer calf, bull calf and yearling bull championships, the championship award for the best pair of calves and the reserve bull calf championship in competition with 90 calves and yearlings from 20 leading herds from Forfar to Orkney.

The only championship to elude the Deveron herd was the top yearling heifer award which was won by Angus butcher and breeder, Tom Rennie, Mosston Muir, Guthrie, Forfar.

Mr Sclater was particularly pleased to win the yearling bull championship with the 21 month old, Deveron Jasper Eric F170, one of only two calves by the home-bred Deveron Limited Edition C094, who sadly died after winning the yearling bull championship at the Bonanza in 2004.

“There has been a lot of interest in this bull but our plans at the moment are to keep him as a stock bull,” said Mr Sclater, who runs a herd of 45 pure-bred cows. Irish judge, Albert de Cogan, from Cork, the current president of the Irish Aberdeen-Angus Association, praised the “superb standard” of the cattle and the stockmanship skills of those showing.

Mr and Mrs Sclater’s other championship winners were all AI progeny of the 30,000gns Netherton Figo G244, supreme champion at Perth in February, 2005, including the heifer calf champion, Deveron Kleo G189 and the bull calf champion and reserve, Deveron Everitt G194 and Deveron Latimer G188.

The two calf champions went to win the McCombie Trophy for the best pair of calves of either sex from the same exhibiter. Two heifer calves by Skaill Dot Com A304 took the reserve award for Scotia Homes chairman, Bill Bruce, Logie, Ellon.

The yearling heifer champion, the 21 month old, Mosston Muir Edwina F136, by Mosston Muir El Krugerrand D081, gave Tom Rennie a great start to the 2008 show season after being announced as winner of the Aberdeen-Angus Show Herd of the Year award for 2007.

Reserve championship awards also went to Lord and Lady Glendyne, Craigeassie, Forfar, with their heifer calf, Hurdcott Princess G269, by Lorabar Roshan D126, supreme champion at Perth in October, 2005, when purchased for 24,000gns.