A 360-MILE round trip proved worthwhile for Gloucestershire farmers Andrew and Becky Bishop when they won the supreme championship at the Beltex Sheep Society’s 15th annual show and sale of pedigree rams and females at Skipton Auction Mart.

Trading as A & R Livestock they won with their January-born ram lamb, Bishops Alladin, by Balbrydie Thor, acquired last year as a ram lamb from Aberdeen breeder Brian Wylie.

The victor, also male champion, is out of a home-bred ewe and joined Madders & Johnson, of Stafford, for 1,800gns.

The reserve female champion was the first-prize aged ewe from Anne Moss, of the Holmebeck flock at Ewebank Farm, Rokeby, near Barnard Castle.

The 2011-born four-shear Holmebeck Roxanne is a daughter of Buckles Masterpiece, bred in Barras, Kirkby Stephen, by K&R Buckle, out of Holmebeck Nefertiti, whose grand dam was the 6,000gns Airyolland Looby Lie.

Mrs Moss, who has been breeding and showing Beltex since 2001, said this was likely to be her swansong in the show arena, as she is now winding down and was staging a dispersal sale at the fixture. She signed off by selling her reserve female for 1,300gns to Aberdeenshire breeder Stuart Wood, of Skene.

She also had the first-prize aged ram Bardnaheigh Talisker, out of Airyolland Roxanne, which sold for 1,300gns to J Whitton, of Goole.

Sale averages, with comparisons to last year in brackets, were: Gimmer lambs £294 (£407); shearling gimmers £529 (£395); aged ewes £455 (£537); ram lambs £666 (£406); shearling rams £633 (£726); aged rams £997 (£1,325).