The New Forest Show 2003
July 31st saw us at the New Forest and Hampshire County Show near Brockenhurst. This was always our favorite show as it is always well organised and the sheep are under cover whatever the weather, although getting vehicles in and out in wet weather can be interesting. Also you can get a good breakfast at the stockmans cafe!

There was likely to be a good entry of Portlands and the judge for the class was someone who knew Portlands very well.

It is quite a long drive for us so it was up at 3.45am and by the time all the stock staying at home had been checked, the dog walked and everyone loaded in the trailer it was 5.00am. Pretty much on target. Everyone going on the trip had been penned in the barn because bitter experience has taught us that catching your chosen stock just before you go is a recipe for disaster!

After an uneventful journey with little traffic we arrived not long before 8.00am, unloaded the sheep, settled everyone down and went for out breakfast. Big mistake. Truly appalling breakfast. Expensive, cold eggs, leathery bacon ect. Quite the worst we have had. They will have to sort the catering out next time.

This was the first major show we had attended for nearly three years and we were very interested to see how much the Portlands had changed in that time. Over the last few ram lamb classyears a number of breeders felt that perhaps the Portlands, particularly show animals, were in danger of becoming slightly too large. So we made a concious effort to select smaller, finer featured animals to take to the show and then found that everybody else had gone the other way and ours were the smallest there! A classic case of people saying one thing and doing another.

With a slightly sinking feeling we found that the judge had been changed to someone who was very knowledgeable but also commercially based and went very much on size and condition. A perfectly valid basis to judge sheep but after the first class we knew we were doomed to be in the also rans that day and the heavyweights would always come out on top. Lots of thirds and fourths but no cups this year. Never mind, we have done really well at this show in the past and there is always another year.

One consolation was that a number of sheep we had bred and sold to other people picked up some good results.

 Back home by 6.30pm. Not one of our best days but no complaints, the judges decision is final and we had bigger sheep that would probably have done well but chose not to take them.  Sometimes you get it right and sometimes you don't.  There is always another day and after all, if it was really easy there would be no challenge!