THERE was a local Yorkshire Day championship success at Skipton Auction Mart’s August prime lambs show for the Ellis Bros team on Addingham Moorside with a pen of five 41kg Beltex crosses sold for £138 each.

Tim Robinson, of Longridge, stood runner-up with 44kg Beltex-cross at £133, another 40kg pen from same home topping the per kilo prices at 340p. JA Gibson & Son, of Church Fenton, Tadcaster, finished third with 39kg lambs sold at £117 per head, while a standalone Suffolk-cross show class was won by the Beamsley-based Hartleys with 46kg lambs selling at £112.

This section also produced the day’s leading gross price of £170 for heavy Suffolks from Mark Evans in Steeton.

The 3,000-strong sheep entry comprised almost 2,000 Spring lambs, with all weights of well-fleshed lambs easily sold.

Not to be outdone, the Red Rose also had its say on Yorkshire Day when the Critchley beef farming family, from Mercer Farm, Hutton, Preston, notched up a notable hat-trick when clinching their third successive monthly prime cattle championship with a 559kg Limousin-cross steer which made top price per kilo at 341.5p, or £1,909, when selling to Anthony Swales, of Knavesmire Butchers, York.

Hartwith’s Nick Dalby judged and tapped out as his overall reserve champion and champion female a 656kg Limousin-cross heifer which was one half of the champion pair of beasts at the recent Driffield Show when paraded by Castleford’s Willie Timm. It made 325.5p/kg, or £2,135, when selling to Kitson & Sons Butchers for its Five Houses Farm Shop & Kitchen in Crathorne, Yarm.

Top price per kilo in the heifers at 329.5p, or £1,812, was the third prize winner from the Huck family in Hubberholme, a 550kg Limousin-cross going to Ralph Pearson Wholesale Butchers in Bradford.

Another solid pen from Hargreaves Farms in Walton-le-Dale saw a quartet of Limousin-cross steers top £2,000 to a day’s gross high of £2,249.