Winners are grinners at Canty show

His own former champion, Dundee of Berwick, was awarded the Reserve Champion ribbon by visiting judge Jason Sallier, of Australia.

Prescott-Ballagh, from the Abberley Stud at Waimate, has been showing his Highland cattle for about 30 years, and showed horses for 20 years before that. Now aged 61, he says he has attended the Canterbury Show for 60 years, missing only one show in a year he was recovering from surgery.

This year he did not let an injured hand stop him – the result of an accident while de-horning one of his animals. Highlands are known for their spectacular horns but de-horning is a recently-introduced requirement for animals sent to slaughter.

A staunch salesman for his beef breed, Prescott-Ballagh says it breaks down to a 70:30% meat-to-bone ratio, with slightly marbled flesh.

“The Queen eats it, so if it’s good enough for the Queen, it’s good enough for us,” he says.

The 154th Canterbury Show opened to a warm sunny day after heavy early rain, the first day traditionally the preserve of Christchurch children visiting in school and pre-school groups.

Popular with the groups of uniformed youngsters was the Mike Greer Homes City Farmyard, where children could get perhaps their first close contact with farm livestock.

Georgia Henderson, of Christchurch, brought her son, Hunter (15 months), for his first experience of a live lamb. Henderson says she was a frequent visitor to the show in past years and rates this show “as good as ever”.

Also attracting big crowds was the children’s shearing and shearing demonstrations, where Pigeon Bay shearer James Dwyer was expected to shear about 30 animals throughout the day, each demonstration interspersed with Dwyer coaching groups of children in ‘shearing’ stuffed-sheep soft toys.

The woolhandling and shearing competitions proper were to take place over the next two days of the show, the shearing a qualifying event for the world shearing championships to be held in Invercargill next March.

The three-day event is the country’s largest A&P show, with at least 6500 showing entries in 1700 classes, and at least 100,000 visitors expected.