Ewbanks Hit Double Top at CCM Craven Champions Highlight
Wednesday 14th February 2024
The Upper Nidderdale Ewbanks - husband and wife, Mark and Fee, Intake Farm, Middlesmoor – clinched a memorable supreme and reserve championship double with a brace of ten-month-old halter-led British Blue-x youngsters at CCM Skipton Auction Mart’s annual Craven Champions 2023-born store cattle with show potential highlight.
The couple, ably assisted by sons Mark, 13, Callum, 11, and ten-year-old daughter Jessie, have excelled in recent years at the early season showcase, though it was their first-ever double top coup.
Callum Ewbank with the family’s Craven Champions supreme champion Blue-cross heifer
Their overall victor was the first prize British Blue-sired heifer and female champion, known at home as ‘Panda’ and named by their children because of her distinctive black and white spotted body. The three-quarters Blue, one quarter Limousin was tapped out as title winner by Derbyshire Peak District show judge Michael Wynne, Matlock, then claimed by him for the day’s top call of £4,400. Like past Skipton-bought Craven Champions principals the victor will be paraded at local shows this summer, then likely on to Bakewell Fatstock Show in December.
Mark Ewbank Jnr with the family’s Craven Champions reserve supreme Blue-x bullock, joined by dad Mark and show judge Michael Wynne.
An all-black Ewbank bullock, another red rosette winner known as ‘Bulletproof,’ went on to stand male champion, then overall reserve supreme, selling for £2,800 to Nick Dalby, Hartwith, with the same home also claiming male reserve with their third entry, the first prize un-haltered bullock, another ten-month-old Blue-x dubbed ‘Bang On,’ this making £1,850 and heading down to Bedfordshire with KW Ludgate, Leighton Buzzard.
While their runaway success broke the stronghold on the fixture long held by the Dunsop Bridge Walkers – they have won no less than ten Craven Champions crowns this century – the well-known Hodder Valley family nevertheless had a major influence on the outcome as the sire of all three Ewbank frontrunners was none other than their own Brennand Jimmy, successfully used over many years at Intake Farm and also responsible for the couple’s first-ever Craven Champions supreme champion in 2020, as well as past reserve champions, including last year.
At the 2024 renewal, it again fell to Geoff Walker to hand over the supreme champion’s Jack Walker Trophy, first presented in 2014 in memory of his late father, to the victorious Ewbanks, while the
Walkers - Geoff farms with wife Margaret and sons, John and Rob, at Brennand Farm - were again well represented, their quality eight-strong team all picking up rosettes.
All were out of out of home-bred cows, chief among them the first prize haltered Limousin-sired heifer and reserve female champion, a 12-month-old AI first calf of Hunters Hall Odyssey, which headed their consignment at £3,100 second top call when heading to Lincolnshire with Chris Wright and Sarah Harryman, Boston.
The prolific Walkers also stood runners-up in the same show class with a same way bred heifer sold for £1,900 to Howard Barker, Menwith, with all other prize winners Blue-x youngsters by the Welsh sire, Maes Owain, whose first crop of youngsters included last year’s supreme champion.
A brace of Walker heifers finished first and second in the un-haltered class, making £2,300 and £2,000 to, respectively, the Brass family, Kirkby Stephen, and John and Jean Bradley, Giggleswick, with three further runners-up in the un-haltered bullock and haltered Blue-sired bullock and heifer classes, away at £1,650, £1,550 and £1,800, plus a third place with another haltered heifer also making £1,650.
Auctioneers: CCM Auctions
Images: Moule Media
