Okehampton Show 12th August 2004
Uploaded December 2004

The last show of the season in the South-West was in dreadful weather at Okehampton. But it was organised so efficiently it was a pleasure to be there. Thanks are sent to Ms Custance Baker, who encouraged us to attend, arranged clear road signs for the livestock vehicles and goodness knows what else behind the scenes as Secretary of the Pig Section. Such successful recruiting could have caused problems as there was only one Judge scheduled to attend. However, thanks are also due to Chief Steward Mr Frank Miller. He appreciated the number of pigs to be judged within the day and impressed upon the sole judge Mr G. Hinks exactly how many minutes and seconds he had per pig. This actually worked very well, and whilst we were in the ring with one pig there were enough helpers to ensure that the next pig was being kept clean and ready to come out immediately each class ended.

Berkshire Classes
After seeing the stock at the County Shows this year I had gone home and looked at my pigs afresh – and made an ‘almost late’ entry of another sow and a gilt. The sow was due to farrow about 3 weeks after this show. She had been shown as a gilt without conspicuous success but she is now fully grown and has blossomed into a lovely sow. She won the first class to my pleasant surprise, ahead of some decent opposition, albeit in August many sows have farrowed and are not brought to shows with their litters. The rest of the Berkshire classes went to Ian Todd’s pigs:

The July gilt had not been shown before but beat my gilt who had won Breed Champion at Cornwall this year. Ian’s was a lovely gilt, but very difficult to load into a trailer, I believe!

The winning January gilt is a new Smallicombe line, a Lady gilt. Her female line goes back to an OldBell Lady which is a litter sister of my own original ‘Lady’, who is the mother of my winning sow. [The BPA pedigree on-line database is very useful to research such gems of information.] Again, this may have been the first time out for this gilt, as Ian’s other two Januaries were the ones he had taken to Cornwall.

The January boar class was Ian’s January boar that had won at Cornwall, a very nice boar that is being retained by Ian as his new Namatjira stud boar. Not many entries in this class because only very good January boars live this long!

The breed championship is a bit hazy in our recollections. We are certain that one of Ian’s won it, so he won his own ‘Smallicombe’ Challenge Trophy for another year. We think it went to the January Lady……or was it the July gilt?

Interbreed
Christine Vaughan was the Interbreed judge. Eight pairs entered, and my pair of Berkshire gilts won. One was the July gilt who had won the Championship at Cornwall, now in pig. The other pig was a September Lady who may turn out to be the better pig. Both were in wonderful condition, a well matched pair and showed themselves well.

Results