Ten exhibitors brought thirty adult cattle and seven calves to compete in the classes. Special mention must go to South Somerset contingent headed by Brian Adams, with 13 cattle from Hurdlebrook, Hinton Farm and Willtown. New exhibitors, the Senior family from Crewkerne, were joined by the Parfitt Family, Sir Howard Guinness, Chettle Farm, Caroline Greenslade, Jon White and the Evans & Sales Partnership.

Well done to all our Future Golden Breeders who competed in the Showmanship and Calf classes. Also thanks to our judge, Colin Gleed and stewards, Tony Mallett and Philip Cox for keeping the classes (almost!!!) running smoothly.

Judge Colin Gleed reports:

A glorious summers day and some fabulous Guernsey classes, heralded the 2010 Royal Bath & West Show. The sparse ringside crowd witnessed a very tough competition from start to finish and I must congratulate all the people responsible for helping to make such a tremendous show of 30 Guernseys.

Heifers in calf

The first class consisted of 8 in-calf heifers, which were of a very high standard and I had to work very hard to sort them out. The winner was from Hinton Farm Ltd with Hinton Polly 66. This Easby Rowan daughter was a fine upstanding heifer, well balanced throughout and paraded exceptionally well. Polly had the advantage over the second place heifer in size and maturity, but I was very impressed with B & S Adams’ Chiddingstone Cassidy Margaret 2. This Sweet Symphony Cassidy daughter, bred by Digby Gribble, was also very well balanced, had a tremendous topline and showed herself really well, which was enough to put her above a another very impressive heifer, this time from Olive Farm, Hurdlebrook Antony Zenelope 6. This Blacknor Supersonic heifer had a lovely silky udder with excellent teat placings and was unlucky to come up against such fine heifers. The first three all had the advantage in Dairyness over the fourth heifer C G Parfit and son’s, Graylands Beauty 28. This Four Winds Royal Delta heifer deserves a mention as she has a tremendous body and was very correct but, being an older heifer, was just carrying too much condition.

Cows in calf

The second class brought together 2 lovely mature in calf cows. The winner was Hurdlebrook Andrea 2 from Olive Farm. This Glacier daughter just had the advantage in dairyness and correctness over the smart Sonny Boy daughter, Graylands Samantha 5 from Colin Parfitt.

Heifers in milk

The next class brought forward nine in milk heifers and these gave me a very big challenge as it was one of the best heifer classes I have seen. Having said that, the winner stood head and shoulders above the rest. This outstanding daughter of Sweet Symphony Cassidy, Blacknor Tania from Chettle Farm, displayed all the traits you want from the modern dairy heifer. She had size and strength and paraded exceptionally well but, most impressive of all, she had a superb udder with the height and width of rear udder that we must be looking for. She was also really well bagged up which gave her a huge advantage. The rest of the class proved very difficult to sort out with very small points between each of them. In second place was Hurdlebrook Mary Ann Jo 32 from Olive Farm. This Tiresford Shaka daughter just had the advantage over two very smart Iceburg heifers from the Greenslades, Greensfield Icy Phillis in third and Greensfield Icy Lady (Devon County Champion) in fourth, that I found difficult to separate.

Second calvers

The second calver class produced another outstanding winner in Bickfield Rainbow 51, bred by Maurice Durbin, but now owned by Evans and Sales Partnership. This Slindon Posie’s Ambionic daughter exhibited extreme dairyness without losing strength, a tremendous body, topline, bone quality, and correctness of teats, which set her well above the others in a strong class. In second place was another Blacknor Supersonic from Olive Farm, Hurdlebrook Mayflower. Very much a more traditional type, she never the less looked a picture and had a lovely udder which gave her the advantage over Sir Howard Guinness’ White Ladies Ruby 93, who was by Trotacre Jay Mr Luck. This was a much more upstanding dairy cow which put her above the others in the class but her udder was not good enough to beat the first two.

Third calvers

The third calver class went to a very correct Gaylands Ellissa 5 from Colin Parfitt. This good Glacier cow just had the edge over the Greenslade's Greensfield Hero's Star by the homebred Jon’s Hero and Wiltown Jay, a Sunninghill Park Royal Oak from Olive Farm that had a lovely body but a disappointing udder.

Senior cows

The senior cow class went to Chettle Farms Luckley Sylvia 15. This Royal Oak daughter displayed superior dairyness, body capacity and parading ability to the others in the class. Second place went to Colin Parfitt’s Graylands Meadowsweet 59, a Kelsmor Mays Sonny Boy daughter that showed more correctness than the third placed animal Kingwell Heros Tangerine exhibited by Jon White.

Groups of three

The group of three produced 3 very impressive groups with Olive Farm's extremely well matched trio beating the Greenslades and the Parfitts into second and third place respectively.

Pairs

Olive Farm came top of the six pairs forward with a Supersonic duo, with the Greenslades Iceberg pair in second place. Chettle Farm were third with a Sweet Symphony Cassidy entry.

The Championship lineup was very impressive with some really well deserved winners in each class but it became a choice between two outstanding individuals, the Heifer in milk and the Second calf class winners. Both of them deserved to win the Championship.

Bickfield Rainbow 51st

After much deliberation I decided to go with the more mature Second calver, BICKFIELD RAINBOW 51.

Blacknor Tania

BLACKNOR TANIA was Reserve Champion, Heifer Champion and Exhibitor Bred Champion.

Graylands Ellissa 5 was Reserve Exhibitor Bred and Rainbow won the shield for best udder.

Olive Farm capped a very good show by winning the Tom Emm points cup. Although they failed to win the interbreed classes, the judge comented to me afterwards how much she was impressed by the Guernseys.

I thoroughly enjoyed a memorable day and was especially pleased to see such strong heifer classes.