Royal Highland Games 2011 results

Published on Friday 24 June 2011 13:53

IT WAS the turn of dairy cattle to take the limelight in the cattle rings yesterday, with the Holstein breed sweeping all before it, taking both individual and team interbreed awards.

The overall champion was last year's reserve, Robert and Elaine Butterfield's Saxelby Golden Rose, a fourth calver from their herd at Lingham Farm, Lancaster, interbreed champion at the Dairy Event and the Great Yorkshire last year.

The Ayrshire, Calderglen Silverbell gave Robin and Jimmy Barr from Campbeltown their second consecutive Highland Show championship. This home-bred third calver was champion at Campbeltown show last year.

There was a new class in the dairy section at this year's show for British Red and White cattle. This allowed red and white cattle with more than 50 per cent Holstein blood to be shown in their own section. It was won by Hugh and Grant Woodburn, Killoch, Galston, with Arthur Lawrie, Cuthill Towers, Milnathort taking reserve with his third calver, Cuthill Towers Daisy Mae, which has been reserve at both Agriscot and the National All Breeds show.

Winning the Jersey championship was especially poignant for Willy Templeton of Mauchline, Ayrshire, as his second calver, Skyhigh Ressurection Veronica nearly died three weeks ago due to an abscess in her ribs. Sporting a large scar – and with Templeton recovering from a 1, 400 vet bill – she still managed to impress the judge.

The second day of judging in the sheep rings saw some of the country's best stock turned out in near perfect showing conditions.

And with the emphasis on continental and island breeds, the contrast in form and function could hardly have been greater between the rings. But regardless of which breed type was favoured, all agreed the turnout had been first class.

Newlyweds, Kirsty and Ross Williams of Turriff would certainly agree – when they lifted the championship ticket in two different breed lines, the Zwartbles and Beltex sections.

But away from the showrings another aspect of sheep production was to the fore at the show. Under the title of "rediscovering the wonders of wool" a major incentive was launched to encourage farmers to take full advantage of higher wool prices – and to push both the fashion and environmental credentials of this fibre to the buying public.

And yesterday's fashion day, saw professional models mixing with the sheep to show a range of garments from Textile Scotland's New Wool campaign.

A recent turn-round in wool prices – brought about partly by the steep decline in world-wide sheep numbers – had given the campaign a real boost.

Today sees a bid to better the world's "baa-ck to back" time when the race will be on clip a sheep, spin the wool, knit a jumper and then wear it in the quickest possible time. Nearly five million troops and civilians died in the three-year war.

1951: Metropolitan Police College at Hendon, London, admitted its first cadets for training.

1990: IRA bomb injured seven, at the Carlton Club, London.

1990: Seven thousand King penguins killed themselves on uninhabited sub-Antarctic Macquaine Island.

1991: Slovenia and Croatia declared their independence from Yugoslavia, triggering conflict.

1992: Skirmishes between English and French fishermen intensified when a party from the minesweeper HMS Brecon boarded a trawler off the Scilly Isles.

1994: John Major used his right of veto to block the appointment of Belgian Jean-Luc Dehaene as the next president of the European Commission.

1997: Jonathan Aitken, a former Cabinet minister, resigned from the Privy Council as Scotland Yard investigated allegations that he had committed perjury and conspired to pervert the course of justice during a libel action against the Guardian and Granada TV.

2008: The Queen stripped president Robert Mugabe of his honorary knighthood "as a mark of revulsion at the abuse of human rights and abject disregard for the democratic process in Zimbabwe".

2009: Pop icon Michael Jackson died at his home in Los Angeles.

BIRTHDAYS

George Michael, singer, 48; Sir Peter Blake CBE, artist, 76; Tim Finn, rock musician, singer/songwriter, 59; Ricky Gervais, comedian, actor and writer, 50; Iestyn Harris, rugby league and union player, 35; Johnny Herbert, racing driver, 47; Eddie Large, Glasgow-born comedian (of Little & Large duo), 69; Roy Marsden, actor, 70; Greg Raymer, professional poker player, 47; Carly Simon, singer and songwriter, 66.

ANNIVERSARIES

Births: 1870 Robert Erskine Childers, author and Irish nationalist; 1900 Earl Mountbatten of Burma, admiral and commander; 1903 Eric Blair (George Orwell), novelist; 1924 Sidney Lumet, American film director.

Deaths: 1767 Georg Telemann, composer; 1795 William Smellie, printer and antiquary; 1968 Tony Hancock, comedy actor; 1997 Jacques Cousteau, underwater explorer and inventor of aqualung; 2009 Farrah Fawcett, actress.