Kevin Huck, of Knowle Bank Farm, Bordley, clinched another championship and £2,000 top price coup with a shearling at Skipton Auction Mart’s annual evening show and sale of Swaledale rams. (Mon. Oct 10)

The well-known Dales farmer is no stranger to success at the breed highlight, having sent out multiple leading price performers and show champions across the years. His latest victor and top price performer is by a Cumbrian-bred Matt Ridley Haltcliffe ram, now a 5-shear and used successfully for the past four years, out of a dam by a home-bred 3-shear ram that stood champion at Skipton three years ago. The purchaser was Trawden’s Alan Greenwood. Mr Huck also sold a second shearling ram at £600, along with a 5-shear aged ram at £700.

A brace of shearling rams also hit £1,000, the first consigned by father and son fixture regulars, Wilf and Stuart Buckle, of Bleathgill, Kirkby Stephen, the son of a home-bred ram joining Nidderdale hill farmers Paul and Caroline Newbould, who run the Moor flock in Dallowgill.

Also from Bordley, Roy Nelson weighed in with the second £1,000 shearling sale, this by a Mark Wallace tup, out of a Punchard-got ewe. It went home with the Shirt family, from Edale in the Derbyshire High Peaks, who are regular buyers at the fixture.

The Buckles – dad Wilf has been Swaledale Sheepbreeders Association C District secretary for the past 40 years – also stepped up with the first prize aged ram and overall reserve champion, a 3-shear first acquired as a reserve champion ram lamb from the late Alan Birbeck’s Windy Hill flock in Nateby. The dam is out of a Bill Cowperthwaite Malham Moor ewe got by a West Briscoe tup, with the red rosette winner topping its section prices at £800 when joining the Horsefield family in Blacko. From the same home, another Buckle shearing ram made £800, plus £500 with a further aged ram.

Back with the shearlings, John Tennant, yet another Swaledale breeder from Bordley, stood runner-up in show with a ram by a Bull & Cave tup acquired for £15,000, out of a dam sired by a West Briscoe ram that itself cost £22,000. The first shearling to be sold by the sire, it made 900gns when again claimed by Alan Greenwood.

Carleton’s John and Lynn Smith were runners-up in the aged ram show class with a 3-shear by a Richard Harker Grayrigg tup acquired from the Walker family in Dunsop Bridge, out of a Brandon Acton-sired dam, which sold for £600.

The Appletreewick Walkers finished third with a 3-shear by a Sunter Bros Nova tup, selling for £400, plus another at £500, while £480 was the selling price for the fourth prize winner, also the best conformation ram, from Mark Walker and partner Becky Burniston in Hartlington. This was also a 3-shear, by a Peter Lightfoot tup, out of a dam by a home-bred ram, while from the same home a shearling ram made £600.

Other shearling prices of note were £900 sales for both P Addyman & Son in Skipton, and AG Horn, of Winterburn, and £600 from both Otterburn’s Andrew Haggas and Saddle End Farms in Chipping, while J Blakey, of Greenhow, sold aged rams at £800 and £600, the Dunsop Bridge Walkers chipping in with aged ram sales of £700 and £550, the Parkinsons, also from Dunsop Bridge, selling another at £500.

The fixture – show co-judges were Keith Harryman, of Keswick, and Laneshawbridge’s Sam Booker - attracted another solid turnout of 70 head, with entries from both pedigree and pure breeders from flocks throughout the Pennines, Yorkshire Dales and Cumbrian Fells. Aged rams were in good demand, with strong, well-built shearlings also selling to a good trade. The former averaged £432.59 (2021 £505), the latter £493.13 (2021 £470).