NORTH Yorkshire farming brothers Robert, Chris and Richard Metcalfe finally got their hands on a trophy they had long been keen to win.

Trading as RD Metcalfe & Son, Grange Farm, Brearton, Harrogate, they have been runners-up several times but this year won the Robert Morphet Memorial Trophy for their champion pen of 50 Suffolk- cross lambs at Skipton Mart’s second major seasonal store lamb show and sale.

The winners were all from the family’s best home-bred Mule ewes within their 500-strong flock and by 15 different Suffolk rams. The winners then sold for the leading breed price of £71.50 each.

Michael and Carol McKenzie, of Blue Scar Farm, Arncliffe, who had been champions for an unprecedented six years running, were this time second and third.

The runners-up from their holding of 350 Suffolk-cross lambs made £70 each and the third placed, £69. The couple also presented the top priced pen of Mule wether lambs at £51.50 per head.

James Foster of Bolton Abbey achieved £71 per head with a pen of Suffolk-x. The overall breed average was £61.50 per head.

The day’s leading price of £73 per head fell to a Texel pen from Airton’s Michael Thwaite, with a breed average of £59.04. Beltex store lambs averaged £60.18 overall, selling to a top of £69 each for a pen from AR&FT Naylor, of Barden.

A pen of Charollais lambs from MAC Iveson & Partners, Masham, sold for £66 per head, with a consignment of Dales Mule wethers from R&VJ Brown, of Kirkby Malham, selling at £55 each.