Mochrum breeding stands out at Beltie show

THERE was a packed ringside at CCM Skipton’s third annual show and sale on behalf of the Belted Galloway Cattle Society on Saturday.

Top of the shop on price at 6200gns, the highest in the event’s three-year history, was a third prize bull and sole entry from James and Helen Rebanks, who run the Racy Ghyll herd at the Lake District farm of the same name.

Their hardy hill bull, Racy Ghyll Aldo, is an April 2023 son of Mochrum Colonel, bred on the Mochrum Estate in Dumfries and Galloway, renowned for its world-famous Belted Galloway herd.

Out of the home-bred Racy Ghyll Brighteye, whose mother was top price heifer at the Castle Douglas sale - the main centre for the breed - in 2019, Aldo headed way south to Devon when joining Gratnar Farm Partnership.

Mochrum breeding was again to the fore in the supreme and reserve champions both from Chris and Christine Ryder, Scaife Hall herd, Blubberhouses.

The victor under show judge Judith Cowie, from Gatehouse of Fleet, above, – her Copelaw herd is at the heart of Belted Galloway country – was Scaifehall Monty, an April 2023 son of main stock bull Mochrum Lachlan. He was a 4000gns purchase as a prize-winning junior bull at Castle Douglas in 2019.

Lachlan was also the sire of the reserve supreme champion, Scaifehall Maximus, while a third Ryder bull, the May 2023 Scaifehall Magnum realised 3000gns going north of the border to the Lullenden herd, Melrose. He, too, is by Lachlan, well utilised across five breeding seasons at Scaife Hall, and himself a son of Broadmeadows Jamie, sold by Clifton Belted Galloways near Dumfries to Mochrum Estate in 2016, and great grandson of Clifton Hercules, champion bull at the 2015 Great Yorkshire Show.