HONOURS were widely spread in the Suffolk Sheep classes on day one of the Suffolk Show yesterday.For the second year running, the breed supreme title went to Gordon and Elizabeth Beddie from Swaffham in Norfolk, this time with a trimmed ewe lamb making her first ever show appearance.

Duncan Brodie

HONOURS were widely spread in the Suffolk Sheep classes on day one of the Suffolk Show yesterday.

For the second year running, the breed supreme title went to Gordon and Elizabeth Beddie from Swaffham in Norfolk, this time with a trimmed ewe lamb making her first ever show appearance.

The lamb is one of a set of triplets born in January who each came first or second in their classes yesterday, which brought a total of five firsts and a second for the couple's flock.

The male championship, however, went to Stephan Cobbald with a shearling ram - one of three class wins for the flock based at Acton, near Sudbury. Its other successes came in the stock ram and ewe lamb classes, with the latter winner being shown in the ring by Mr Cobbald's 11-year-old daughter Charlotte.

There was further success for the breed's home county with the Partridge family from Kersey, near Hadleigh, picking up first place in the flock ewe class and a second place with a shearling ewe before claiming top honours in the group of three class, for one male and two females owned by the same exhibitor.

Elsewhere along the sheep lines there was double championship success for Graham Allenby from Thornton in Licolnshire.

He first claimed the Hampshire Down breed title with a trimmed ewe lamb and then - in the same ring and little more than an hour later - added the Continental Breeds championship with a Charollais shearling ewe.

Mr Allenby also took reserve in the Continental championship with a ewe lamb, in a contest dominated by the Charollais breed despite competition from Texels whose numbers this year was insufficient for the breed to have its own dedicated classes.

Reserve in the Hampshire Down championship went to Denise Middleditch of Belchamp St Paul, near Sudbury, with a trimmed ewe lamb and there was a first prize for Jim Cresswell, from Wattisfield, near Diss, with a ram lamb.

It was, however, largely a day of near misses for Mr Cresswell - frequently a championship winner himself at the Suffolk - who was beaten into second place in four other classes.