A NEW centre high was achieved at Skipton Auction Mart's Christmas prime show and sale, when the champion sold for £4837 or £8.10 per kg to D and S White Butchers, Marple, Stockport.

Just as notable was the fact that the champion was owned by three-year-old James Moorhouse, Lower Middop Farm, Gisburn, after he first won the young handlers section with a 600kg Blonde cross heifer, which went on to lift the champion heifer and supreme overall. Bred by Janet and James Huck, Austwick, it was bought at Skipton earlier in the year.

As well as the show champion, White’s Butchers also bought the third prize British Blue cross heifer, from the same home at £2483, or £4.39 per kg, along with the runner-up in the same class, another Blue heifer from Clare Cropper and John Mellin, of Mill House Farm, Long Preston, at £1796, or 294.5p/kg.

For the third year in succession, local breeder, John Stephenson, of Bordley Green Farm, Bordley, picked up the reserve overall honours with his first prize home-bred British Blue cross heifer which passed the weigh-bridge at 575kg. Successfully shown all summer, she sold for £2699, or 469.5p per kg, to Anthony Kitson, owner of Kitson and Sons Butchers.

Mr Stephenson also produced the champion steer, in a 595kg Charolais cross, which had also done well at the summer shows winning the breed championship at this year’s Great Yorkshire Show. Another home-bred entry, out of a Blue cow, it made £1871, or 314.5p per kg, to Countrystyle Meats Farm Shop, Lancaster,.

The 2015 Christmas prime cattle supreme champions, Clare Cropper and John Mellin, were again to the fore securing three firsts, with a 500kg Limousin-cross steer also awarded the reserve male championship. Acquired from Middleton-in-Teesdale’s John White, it sold for £1797, or 359.5p again to Hamlets Butchers.

The 52 prime cattle sold to average £1708.96 per head, or 308.57p per kg.

Three Beltex cross lambs bagged the supreme sheep championship for father and son duo, Richard and Mark Ireland, of Heys Farm, Whalley.

The boys, who are better known for their Heys Texel flock, secured their first supreme here in five years exhibiting with a pen of 47kg trimmed lambs by the home-bred Beltex stockram, Shamrock Beast. They later sold for £520 per head to the judge, Tim Hamlet, who owns Hamlets Butchers in Church Street, Garstang.

Mr Hamlet also went to £200 per head to buy his choice of reserve winners – three 39kg Beltex cross lambs from James Towler, Steelands Farm, Grindleton. Home-bred, they were also by a pure Beltex tup bought here in September 2016.

Champion hill lambs, was the first prize pen of 52kg Mashams which were also breed champions at Countryside Live in Harrogate for husband and wife team, Mike and Betty Allen, Borrowby Grange Farm, Whitby. They were bought from JM Wilson and Sons in Beckwithshaw, Harrogate, and later sold for £130, or 250p per kg, to Andrew Ashby, who has The Millstones & Mill 67 in Skipton Road, Kettlesing, Harrogate.

Reserve hill lamb champions was the first prize pen of three 49g Scottish Blackface lambs from North Yorkshire’s Keith Porteous, who farms in Richmond.

It was a Beltex cross that also scooped the top honours at the mart's carcase competition staged the same day, when an entry from Malhamdale sheep farmer Michael Hall, of Scosthrop, was presented the tri-colour.

Mr Hall, who has 250 Beltex breeding ewes at his Scosthrop Farm, won the title with a home-bred Beltex-cross which first won the 35-40 kg continental class. It had a live weight of 36kg, but killed out at 21.7kg deadweight, with a 60.2% killing out percentage having graded an E3L. It sold for £250 to York butcher Anthony Swales, for his Knavesmire Butchers shop in Albermarle Road.

Mr Swales also paid £125 for the second prize 25-40kg continental carcase (38kg 21.1kg E2) from Tom Walmsley, of Haverah Park Harrogate, and £48 for the first prize Swaledale carcase from the Stockdale family in Burnsall. It had a live weight of 42kg, 16.1kg deadweight, killing out percentage 48% and graded an O3L.

Reserve champion for the second year running was Hannah Brown, of Dovecote Barn, Leyburn, this time with a near pure 41-44kg Beltex carcase. It had been reserve champion as a live lamb at Countryside Live. With a live weight of 41kg, 25.2kg deadweight, killing out percentage 61.4% and E3L grading, it made £170 to regular butcher buyer George Cropper snr, Accrington Market.