Hillden Poll Dorset stud’s James Frost with his RASV interbreed champion ram. Picture – RASV.

GOOD structure and muscling has won a Hillden Stud Poll Dorset ram a rare show double in two weeks.

Last week Hillden’s late August 2016-drop ram was sashed grand champion ram at the Australasian Poll Dorset Championships in Bendigo in the wool and then at the Royal Melbourne Show this week after shearing the sheep took out the Royal Agricultural Society of Victoria’s interbreed champion ram title.

“It has never been done before, I don’t think, for a sheep to win one show in the wool and then the next week win grand champion again bare shorn,” Hillsden stud master James Frost said.

James said the ram was picked out as a lamb and was always going to be kept.

“So we kept him in the wool and because they didn’t have a woolly class at Melbourne we shore him to take him down there.

“We knew he had the structure and type and everything; we knew he would shear well,” James said.

“He is very structurally correct and with good muscling for a young ram.”

James said the ram’s success at Melbourne was the stud’s best performance at the Royal show.

The Hillden ram is by a Tattykeel ram the stud bought in 2013, who was the sire of the stud’s reserve supreme champion at Melbourne last year. The ram weighed 127.5kg at Melbourne and scanned with an eye muscle depth of 51mm, width of 104mm width and 40.8square cm area.

“We had a step up this year.”

The ram won the Royal Melbourne interbreed title in an exciting finish to the RASV Sheep Interbreed judging after the normal class judging ended in a tie.

With the six appointed judges unable to split the Poll Dorset ram from the Ashley Park Stud’s White Suffolk champion ram, respected breeder Ian Bucknall was brought in as over-judge to select the final winner. Ian Kyle’s Ashley Park Stud, Bairnsdale, was awarded the reserve champion sash.

Poll Dorset was also the winning breed of champion ewe taken out by the Scott family’s Valley Vista Poll Dorset Stud from Coolac in New South Wales.

James Frost said his interbreed champion ram would be collected for expected semen sales and then used heavily in the stud.

“We sell semen from the better end to get our genetics into other studs.”

RASV chief executive officer Mark O’Sullivan congratulate the 2017 Royal Melbourne Show Sheep Competition interbreed champions on their outstanding entries and continued success.

“With over 550 sheep entered in 2017, the continued growth of the competition is a testament to the exceptional exhibitor experience on offer at the show.”