Classings Cullings '17 |
After classing there this week, mostly sorting rams for the 2017 auction, twenty or so absolute rippers for Classic’17 and a couple possibly for the Adelaide sale it dawned on me just how good an operation this stud is.
Single joining groups from mostly all Ridgway Advance (RA from here on) sires and bred from the same, A.I results from all RA sires as well as E.T results from the same and from top RA mothers let me know that this stud is a genuine Parent Stud! A stud where not only top end commercial growers can access some of the best genetics in the country but also stud enterprises eager to source the next step in breeding strategies.
Sure there has been intrusions of Leahcim, Wallaloo Park and further back Charinga and Gowandale but this stud now has its own entity.
One of their own sires, RA80 (x RA532) and nicknamed will.i.am, who incidentally made it to the Classic’14 pens as a young spring drop, was passed in due to a realistic reserve the stud put on his head, put 27 rams into the 2016 sale. That’s over a quarter of the top sale team and also included the top gong in pen 9 for $5,200! Try this as well - a few weeks later eight of the fifteen Classic’16 rams were also sired by RA80 to a team high of $13,000! He passes on skins of perfect density and lustre reflected in a fibre traditional studs can only dream of! He has featured well again for this year’s On Property team loaded again with his genetics.
Then there’s the intensity of the principles which needs to be experienced to be appreciated. David has been in this game for a long time now, selling rams, breeding rams, shearing rams, crutching, watching trends and fads yet has stuck firm with the product which has evolved into the best going ‘round.
Organiser of E.T., A.I. sponging, CIDR’s, wool samples, test results, advertising, stud bookwork, shearing shed work and four active kids, Karen needs some kind of medal as well!
Then there’s this kid - Devon can look across two pens of poll rams with sun in his face, testing his parents with cheek, cataloguing rams and notice that two or three are in the wrong group in the third pen. On inspection there’s no argument. He constantly looks at individual rams (sometimes from 10 metres) and instantly recollects them from a previous classing and lists off the mother’s breeding as well.
A rare talent that has no parallel in my time or for anyone else’s in my opinion. We’ve all had to put up with the stud master who bores you to the coffin with useless information from another part of history yet this kid’s observations are far from that and often ‘chilling.’
I’m not going to rant about the sale of which I could if I had the energy. All of the familiar local names were present and bought well. The interstaters push them along all day adding to the competition and enforcing the popularity of this stud. Density, fluid nourishment, silk like softness and a meaty carcass abounds encouraging at times ferocious bidding all the way to lot 100.
Well done David, Karen and Devon. A good average to keep the masses coming back with all higher priced animals deserved of the tag yet all day there was some of the greatest quality going around for a budget that would suit most serious wool growers particularly in lieu of what’s happening out there with a record high wool market in tandem with record meat prices.
Bill Walker Classing & Advisory, Classings Ltd.
Back