Sheep title wins at the double for Pinny family on day one of the Suffolk Show

First Andrew claimed the Texel breed championship with a ewe lamb and then Merrick added another title to the family’s long line of succeses with the Suffolk breed, this time with a trimmed ram lamb.

Andrew and Merrick, from Holcot in Northamptonshire, said that, in each case, yesterday was their champion’s first show appearance.

Texel judge Neil Pamplin, from Ringstead in Northamptonshire, said the ewe had stood out in her class and was very correct for the breed, with good feminine characteristics combined with a good carcase.

The Middleditch family from Belchamp St Paul, near Sudbury, retained the Hampshire Down breed title with a shearling ewe, sired by Pode Hole Guinness out of a Belton ewe.

She is a full sister to the ram which won last year’s breed championship as a shearling, and which went on to claim the interbreed title.

Another success for Suffolk came in the strongly contested Southdown championship which went to a shearling ram owned and show by Holly Lutkin from Marsh Lane, Beccles.

He was purchased only a month ago but has already been show at Newark, where he came second, Hadleigh and the Essex Young Farmers Show and there are now plans for him to attend the Lincoln and Royal Norfolk shows too.

The ram was purchased from Susan Harmer from Offham, near Lewes in East Suffolk, who claimed reserve spot for herself yesterday with a shearling ram which also stood second to the eventual champion in their class.

Judge Daniel Bunting, from Berkhamsted in Hertfordshire, described the champion as “a proper Southdown” and “one of the best I have seen for a long while.”