Multiple Skipton Auction Mart calf show champions, brothers Shaun and Peter Sowray of Bowes Green Farm, Bishop Thornton, struck again when securing both leading honours at the annual spring show and sale on Monday.

The Sowrays clinched another in a long line of championship successes with their first prize five-and-half-week-old home-bred British Blue-cross bull calf.

The victor progressed to secure top price in show when falling for £490 to North Lincolnshire’s Nigel and Maria Mason, now regular buyers at Skipton.

The Sowrays’ reserve champion was their red rosette-winning six-week-old home-bred British Blue-cross heifer, which joined David Asquith in Pool-in-Wharfedale for £340.

The brothers were responsible for all three prizewinners in the Blue heifer show class, the runner-up selling for £345 to Tony Binns, of Clint, Harrogate, their third placed entry for £290, again to Mr Asquith.

To cap a good day, the Sowrays also sent out the first and second prize Limousin-cross heifer calves, which made £300 each when becoming further Asquith acquisitions.

Brisk trade saw the 71 youngsters forward sell to an overall Continental-cross average of £310 per head, with a native average of £207 and a black and white mean of £91. British Blues had the best of the exchanges, with the third prize bull calf from Robert Metcalfe, of Brearton, selling well at £420 to the Masons, who also paid £400 for another Blue bull calf from Alan Middleton, of JP and KE Hartley in Beamsley.

Blues also produced the leading averages, with bulls achieving £378.64 per head and heifers £294, peaking at £350 for the first prize Continental heifer stirk from Skipton regular Richard Spence, of Sutton-in-Craven. The buyer was Martin Hutchinson, of Mixenden.

Mr Spence also stepped up with two further red rosette winners – the first prize Continental bull calf, a Simmental sold for £325 to Tony Binns, and the first prize black and white bull calf, which fell to Richard Umpleby in Killinghall for £95.

Reigning Craven Cattle Marts Farmers of the Year Fred and Mark Houseman, who trade as Church Farm Enterprises near Burton Leonard, also achieved a hat-trick of first prize successes, dominating the native breed show classes with Aberdeen Angus entries – a bull calf sold for £265, again to Richard Umpleby, and a heifer calf that joined Paul Drinkall in Gargrave for £245.

The Housemans sold a further Angus bull calf at £280 to Wetherby’s Robert Foster, along with the first prize Continental bull stirk, a British Blue-cross that became another Mason buy at £490.

Robert Metcalfe was to the fore again with the first prize Limousin-cross bull calf, sold for £300 to the show judge, beef and sheep farmer Gareth Hogg, of Copgrove, Harrogate, although it was Bolton Abbey’s Graham Hayton and EC Stocks who headed both Limousin prices with a bull calf at £390, a further Mason buy, and a heifer calf at £360 to Ashfield Farms, Lothersdale.

JP and KE Hartley presented the £165 top price black and white bull calf. The buyer was Dave Grassam, of Stockeld Park.

The next rearing calf show is on Monday, May 5.