The Handleys – Ian and Diane and Ian’s brother Peter – Gunnerfleet, Chapel-le-Dale, made their presence felt at the Craven Champions calf sale at Skipton, buying several of the lead priced lots.

Top on their list at £2500 was the reserve champion, a 10-month-old Limousin heifer by Lodge Hamlet, from Janet and James Huck, Sowerthwaite, Austwick. She is out of a British Blue cross Limousin dam.

Following a successful career breeding pedigree Limousins at Gunnerfleet, Mr Handley explained that the family’s farming policy is now to buy in the best bulling heifers, follow a strictly planned and controlled health regime, then put them to an easy calving pedigree Limousin bull, a Plumtree Fantastic son from the Garrowby herd at Bugtorpe, York.

Moving forward, he added that the plan is to sell progeny in calf at a special sale, with some 52 show potential breeding cattle already on the ground.

This British Blue cross heifer took champion for the Walker family pictured with the judges, John Mellin and Clare Cropper

This British Blue cross heifer took champion for the Walker family pictured with the judges, John Mellin and Clare Cropper

The Handleys also bought the champion, an un-haltered British Blue cross heifer for £2200 from Geoff Walker and his two sons, John and Rob, Brennand Farm, Dunsop Bridge, who landed a record breaking eighth championship, this time with an un-haltered 13-month-old heifer.

She is by the Walker’s former stock bull, Cromwell Fendt, which bred the family’s eight previous champion winners. The Walkers also sold the second top priced lot at £2300, a 13-month-old haltered British Blue heifer again by Fendt but out of a Blonde cross cow. She was knocked down to BE and CA Allsop, Sproxton on the Leicestershire-Lincolnshire border.

The two second prize winning haltered heifers from Sheila Mason, Keasden Head, Clapham, both sold to Gunnerfleet, with the dearest at £1900, being a Limousin cross by Coachhouse Lionheart, and the other at £1800, a British Blue cross by Keasden Head Laddie.