BOTH principal prize winners at Skipton Auction Mart’s second annual shearling gimmer show and sale were landing top honours at the fixture for the first time.

Thomas and Sheila Binns, of Hecklin Farm, Downham, sent out the first prize pen of ten Mules, while David Lucas and Angela Nairey, of Bank Hey Farm, Blackburn, were responsible for the red rosette-winning pen of ten pure-bred Texels.

The Binns’s victors returned to near their place of origin when sold for £162 per head to WT Dewhurst, of Waddington. They were also responsible for the second prize pen, which made £156 each.

The Lucas and Nairey partnership – they have been farming together for 34 years - saw its prize-winning pen, all home-breds by a selection of stock rams, make £170 each when joining Gareth Daniels, from Little Barningham, who also bought a second pen from the same breeders.

In addition, Mr Daniels paid the day’s top price of £172 per head for another Texel shearling gimmer pen from Easingwold’s Ken Gamble.

Ann Myers, who trades with her two daughters, Valerie Mayes and Dianne Firenyi, at West View Farm, Winksley, narrowly failed to win the Continental show class for the third year in succession. They were runners-up at the latest renewal with another Texel pen that made £165 per head.

Third in class were Lambert and Joy Coverdale, of Beckwithshaw, Harrogate, with their charges knocked down at £132 each, a price equalled by the third prize pen in the Mule show class from Nick Thompson, of Stanbury.

A total of 2,643 ewes and shearlings were penned for the fortnightly sale, with good trade seen for quality sorts, while commercial types were also a better trade than the previous sale.

Texel shearling gimmers averaged £120 per head, Mules £127, Suffolk £105, Charollais £93 – John Turner, of Draughton, was top price achiever in these two classes at £110 and £115 respectively – and Lleyn £107

Skipton’s next breeding ewe and gimmer shearling sale on Tuesday.