Sam Driver shearling ram supreme champion and 1,600gns top call at CCM Skipton Dorset highlight

It was by some considerable margin the highest price achieved since the club first began staging its annual highlight at Skipton in 2022 and widely hailed as the most successful to date, with complete clearance of all 44 rams and females forward and demand very strong for all classes, also signalling a solid start to the mart’s 2026 pedigree sheep season.

It also proved another coup for Mr Driver, vice-chairman of the national society and current national flock champion, who was clinching his third title at the North Yorkshire venue with his first time-shown April, 2025, Sandy Lane Herriot, by Southbank Gussage and whose Ballyhamage dam, bred in Northern Ireland by the Robson family, was one of the first prize pair of ewe lambs purchased at the 2024 Ballymena Premier Sale.

Already successfully used at home as a ram lamb, Herriot was closely vetted before being tapped out as male champion, then overall victor by Pendle show judge Maria Odgers, Quarrydale flock, Roughlee, just earning the nod ahead of the female champion due, in her own words, to “being solid, correct, square with a nice head, well put together and set to do well for any flock.”

That decision was cemented when her chosen champion went on the head the prices and become one of multiple acquisitions, 21 in all and the first of the breed by the local Fort family in Steeton, whose second male purchase at 800gns was the second prize and top price ram lamb from Northern Club secretary Stuart Alderson, Paddock Leach flock, Ainsworth, Bolton. His Paddock Leach Igniter is a September, 2025, son of Poorton Detonator – it was the last chance the purchase male progeny from the sire - out of a home-bred Paddock Leach Challenger ewe.

The Forts – Graham and Mandy, and children Terry and Beverley – also took home a further 19 Dorset females, among them the joint top 650gns ladies, one Stuart Alderson’s first prize ewe lamb and female champion, Paddock Leach Ida, a September, 2025, daughter of Paddock Leach Golden Hoof, now in Devon with Dave and Gemma Rendle’s Woodburn flock on the edge of Exmoor, near Tiverton, and purposely chosen by Signet to provide semen for progeny trials on four Dorset flocks. Out of a home-bred ewe, Ida’s indexes are in the top 25% of the breed, both terminal and maternal.

The other falling to the Forts at 650gns was one of a brace of very young April, 2025-born shearling gimmers again from Sam Driver, both Southbank Gussage daughters that had been run with Huish Inches.

While the Forts are better known for their award-winning Brightonhouse flock of pedigree Lleyn sheep, itself a multiple champion at Skipton, Beverley explained: “We bought the Dorsets to breed as pedigrees to expand our sheep empire and to compliment our 1,000 head pedigree Lleyn sheep flock and by utilising the three times in two years lambing benefit of the Dorset we will have lambs to sell at different times of the year.

“We are as keen as ever on the superb Lleyn breed and see the Dorsets as a new interest and idea to expand our sheep enterprise as we have acquired an extra 300 acres of grass within the last two years.”

Also hitting four figures at a round 1,000gns (£1,050) was the second prize shearling ram from Nidderdale teenager Freddie Lea, Braithwaite flock, Dacre Top, Pateley Bridge, who clinched his first-ever supreme championship as a 15-year-old with the first tup he had ever bred at last year’s fourth annual Skipton breed highlight.

His home-bred September, 2024 Braithwaite Hercules, sired by Poorton Z25, acquired as a 5-shear, out of the Bennachie Duns-sired Quarrydale Fantastic, itself bred by the judge, bought as a gimmer lamb and one of the Braithwaite team show ewes this year, joined fellow Dorset breeders MJ&LC Lund, Quernmore, Lancaster.

Freddie, who established his flock in 2022. also consigned the third prize shearling ram, Braithwaite Hornblower, born October, 2024, and again by Poorton Z25 – the Skipton duo were the first to be sold by the sire - which made 350gns, a price matched by the fourth prize winner and sole pedigree entry from Joe Marshall, White Peak flock, Oxcroft, Derbyshire.

As in previous years, Messrs Driver and Alderson were prominent among the prize winners. The former also presented the first prize ram lamb, the home-bred Sandy Lane Isotope, born October, 2025, to Sandy Lane Faithless, breed champion and reserve interbreed at Todmorden Show two years ago, which made 450gns, supplemented by the second prize shearling ewe, also by Faithless, making 300gns.

Stuart Alderson also caught the eye when taking principal honours in the pen-judged show classes, with a trio of 15-month-old gimmer hoggs making 540gns and a quartet of 11-month-old gimmer lambs at 450gns. Further successes and selling prices for the Alderson camp were 450gns for the second prize ewe lamb, 420gns for both the third and fifth prize shearling ewes, and 400gns and 420gns respectively for the first and second prize aged ewes.

Red Rose fixture regular, Alec Steff, Waggoners Flock, Burnley, also picked up tickets, doing best at 450gns with her first prize shearling ewe, a home-bred February, 2025, Richhill Enigma daughter going to the up-and-coming Freddie Lea, 350gns for the fourth prize winner in the same show class, then 210gns for both the third and fourth prize ewe lambs.

Many other gimmer shearlings in singles and pens made 350-420gns, gimmer hoggs either side of 400gns and ewe lambs for running on 200-220gns. Selling averages were solid, all males levelling at £706.50 and females £398.43, with individual section averages, all showing an increase on the year, as follows: Aged ewes £480 (2025 £273), shearling ewes £434 (£237), ewe lambs £304 (£194), shearling rams £782 (£420), ram lambs £656 (£630). Co-sponsoring were Carrs Billington, I’Ansons and Dugdale Nutrition.