Australian Sheep and Wool Show, Bendigo – July 2024

Twenty-one exhibits from three studs including Riverview (Gretna, TAS), Moorabbee (Emu Creek, VIC) and Fairview (Barongarook, VIC) set the scene for this year’s Australian Sheep and Wool Show. We were delighted to have highly experienced past Polwarth breeder and now Dohne breeder, Ike Ashby from South Australia as our judge.

It was the ram classes in particular which created some head scratching moments for Ike who was extremely thorough with his inspections, requesting rams be tipped over and also walked up and down the aisle. As Ike worked through each class, the anticipation was evident on the faces of the breeders. At the pointy end of the day, a senior ram from Fairview was awarded Supreme Champion Polwarth for 2024. Throughout judging, Ike was looking for good structure, white well-nourished wool, purity in the face and evidence of productivity.

Junior Competition - The Junior Handler and Fleece Competition ran concurrently with the senior judging involving some 12 students from Catherine McAuley College. As most of the students have limited experience with sheep and wool, the competitions are designed to provide a hands-on learning experience.

For the Junior Handler, students were briefed by Samantha Potter (Fairview) as to how to present the sheep and were then allocated to one of the three studs for judging. Unbeknown to students the junior judge was Maxine Walker (Riverview), who had a bird’s eye view of their skills, because she also was out on the floor handing ribbons to the judge.

In the Fleece Competition, Moorabbee supplied four fleeces of varying quality to be assessed by the students. Greg Potter (Fairview) scored the fleeces and used a fifth fleece to brief the students on the characteristics he was looking for. Students then set about completing a scorecard for each fleece based on Soundness, Colour, Character, Density and Evenness.