Hope flock champion again and top price at Skipton Jacob showcase

Wyn and Siwan Harries, who run the Hope flock at Wenant, near Llandeilo in Carmarthenshire, repeated the championship success achieved on their first-ever appearance last year on their return to the 2019 Jacob Sheep Society Northern Region 44th annual show and sale at Skipton Auction Mart. (Saturday, August 31)

The couple retained the title with their first prize aged ewe and female champion, a January, 2015, 4-horn bred by the same family’s Gobaith flock run by Mrs Harries and daughters Sara and Lois.

By Hope Rocky, a Royal Welsh champion bred from a renowned line going back some ten years – his sire was a Scottish-bred Cavers ram – the Skipton victor, who is out of a Jean Price Pentrenant ewe, went on to head the selling prices at 1,100gns when rejoining the Price family, specifically the show judge, Jean’s husband Robert Robert Price, for his own Pentre flock in Churchstoke, Powys.

The Harries family also achieved a 700gns sale with a fully home-bred ram lamb, the January 4-horn Hope Warrior, by Hope Rocky Boy, which found a new home across the sea with County Wicklow’s N Fletcher.

Standing reserve champion was the first prize ram lamb from first-time exhibitors from Northern Ireland, the Colhoun family – mum and dad, Paul and Sharon, and their 15-year-old son, Alex -who run the Kingarrow flock in Omagh, County Tyrone. Joseph Duff is also key to the operation.

Their January-born Kingarrow Hulk is a 2-horn son of Pard House Major, bred in Worcestershire by Deborah Howell, out of a Betty Palmer Nettlebed ewe. The Colhouns – Paul works as a rep for a tyre firm, while Sharon is a nursing home manager – have been breeding Jacobs since 2009 and currently have 35 breeding females.

Their Skipton overall reserve headed the section prices at 800gns when claimed by Welsh breeders the Trumper family, from Brynderi, Abergavenny in Monmouthshire.

Shearling ewe prices also peaked at 800gns for the third prize winner from another Northern Ireland showman, Jimmy McGrath, who runs the Gleannmor flock in Omagh. His February, 2018, 4-horn ewe, a daughter of Hope Hawk, out of a Gleannmor ewe by Dunmor Xcite, joined Vicky Duncan, from Muirkirk in East Ayrshire.

Mr McGrath achieved further success when consigning the first prize ewe lamb, a January-born 4-horn also by Hope Hawk, out of a Tirelugan ewe. This, too, sold well at 500gns to G Harper, of Bonchester Bridge in Roxburghshire.

Ewe lamb class prices peaked at 550gns for a Hope Flash Lad daughter from breed stalwart Jean Price’s Pentrenant flock, this heading back to Northern Ireland with the Colhoun family.

Mrs Price, who last year at Skipton set a new all-time breed record price of 4,600gns with her reserve champion ram lamb – she has also been supreme champion several times at the venue – was, of course, unable to show this year as her husband Robert was adjudicating.

Shearling rams sold to a high of 200gns for a March, 2018, 2-horn from Chris and Emily Maudsley’s Escrigg flock at Endmoor, Kendal. Their Langdale Laddy son, Escrigg Buster, out of a Mintside ewe sold to Staffordshire’s Paul Jolliffe.

The sale attracted a 117-strong entry, which were a firm trade, with females particularly good to sell. Shearlings and senior rams saw good clearance rates, while the ram lamb trade, as always, was selective.

Top prices and averages were: Ewes to 1100gns (av £301), shearling ewes to 800gns (av £280, ewe lambs to 550gns (av £197), shearling rams to 200gns (av £144), ram lambs to 800gns (av £271), rams to 400gns.