LLEYN gimmer lambs took centre stage for their annual show at Skipton Auction Mart, when Matthew Field, of Close Farm, Scarborough, was awarded the winner’s red rosette for an unprecedented fifth year in succession.

Mr Field has been breeding Lleyn sheep for 15 years and his pen of ten lambs sold for £80 per head, top price in show, to MJ Croft, of Masham.

He again received the JA Simpson Trophy, presented by Jim Simpson, of Giggleswick.

Mr Field was also responsible for the third prize pen, which sold for £68 per head to Janet Sheard in Almondbury. She is also Craven Cattle Mart’s field officer for West Yorkshire.

The second prize pen was exhibited for Caring For Life, a Leeds-based registered Christian charity supporting homeless or vulnerable adults.

The charity established its Crag House registered pedigree Lleyn flock three years ago and adults are fully involved in all aspects of the running the flock. Their runners-up sold for £65 per head to CH and C Fearnley, of Barden.

The top price Lleyn gimmer lambs from RW and B Chapman, of Skyreholme, made £86 each, producing an overall breed selling average of £54.60 per head.

The show formed part of Skipton’s fortnightly sale of 2,029 breeding sheep and rams, and also incorporated the third seasonal sale of Swaledale ewes. Texel gimmer lambs from Ivanhoe Livestock in Hutton, Leyburn, sold to £152 and Beltex gimmers from the same vendor to £108. Ivanhoe were also responsible for the top price £150 per head Beltex shearlings, while two-shears sold to £108 per head for a Mule pen from AL Worsnop-Petyt, of High Birstwith, with the same vendor also responsible for the £90 per head top price four-shear Mule pen. Aged ewes sold to a high of £98 for a Mule pen from Rita Heseltine, of Summerbridge.

In the Swaledale ewe class, shearlings peaked at £98 for a pen from P Robison, of Hebden Bridge, two-shear to £100 from the same vendor, and four-shear to £80 from JC Walker and Son in Dunsop Bridge. Of the rams sold, the top price achiever was a 480gns Blue Faced Leicester shearling from AP Percival in Haworth.