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Show Season - 2013

After the huge success we had in 2012, 2013 season got off to a quiet start, in what we thought would be a quiet year, how wrong we were.....  Steve was judging at Bath & West so we didn’t compete at Stafford Show.  Having decided a couple of years ago not to go back to Newark, the pigs didn’t come out until Cheshire. 

 

A young December born gilt we bought from Jube Wickstead as a weaner, Boswick Dorothy 7 was Breed Champion and our sow Finnington Skylark 8 was Reserve Breed Champion.  This goes to show that you shouldn’t be worried about showing a pig that is not of the optimum age for it’s class.  A December gilt will always be at a disadvantage against July born pigs in the same class, but if the judge is any good he/she should be able to compensate and if the pig is good enough it will win.

The British Landrace did well.  Breed Champion was our original sow from Steve Loveless, Sunrise Vega 2065 (Lily).  We also qualified our little January boar Finnington Hawk 2 for BPA Young Pig of the Year, the final being at Great Yorkshire Show.  His litter sister Finnington Cordelia 2 qualified for Young Pig of the Year.  For the second year running Lily also won Supreme Champion.

 

As we had qualified, our next show was Great Yorkshire.  We only took a few young Landrace, we didn’t take any Large Blacks.  Finnington Hawk 2 was Male Champion in very strong classes.   His litter sisters Finnington Cordelia 2 & 3 were also present and whilst Cordelia 2 won her class she didn’t progress further. The three of them won the breed Group of Three.

The second day was extremely busy.  Hawk was out in the Male Championship in the morning, but was sent out early on by judge Martin Snell as he obviously wasn’t his type.  In the Pig of the Year final Hawk was pulled out as one of three Modern boars.  We were thrilled as he was only a January boar and the others were much older.  We were totally shocked when he was pulled out as not only best Modern boar, but best boar overall.  The Pig of the Year competition is the most prestigious competition in our calendar and to have qualified a pig is a great achievement.  To win Best Male POY is HUGE, but we topped that and to our great surprise and delight he was crowned ‘Pig of the Year’.  The judge was so bowled over by him that he bought him and so Hawk now resides in Northern Ireland.

As if things could not get better, the afternoon saw the Young Pig of the Year final.  The final had been moved following the downfall of its last home the Hatfield Show. Hawk hadn’t qualified for this, but in the heats before the final he did qualify.   Hawk did extremely well, but in the heat of the day and as he’d been out in the ring so many times, he was getting tired.  He managed reserve male YPOY, which in itself is a great achievement, but then his sister Cordelia was reserve female YPOY..

Huge thanks must go to Tracey Bretherton who handled both the boar and gilt for us and without whose help we would not have acheived what we did

 

Our last show was to be our favourite, Anglesey.  We took a small team, Lily and the January Landrace.  We also took Blossom who had missed Cheshire as she was too heavily in pig to take, but we wanted to get her out at least once.  She wasn’t in completely show condition and got beaten, but she enjoyed it.  Lily once again took Supreme, with the 3 Landrace winning the coveted Overall Group of Three Championship.

 

We did think that was the last show until we were persuaded to take some Soay to the Soay Sheep Society Show at the Autumn Event, Peterborough in October.  We took a range of sheep, our lovely ewe lamb won her class and our coloured ram Windsor won the Coloured Soay class, together with a trophy.

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