An Introduction to Showing Sheep

We arrived at Jo and Richard's farmhouse to a lovely welcome of coffee, cake and biscuits with warm greetings from our hosts and their gorgeous, ginger, lap-loving cats. Jo told us how they had first come to show their award winning Kerry Hill sheep, starting from scratch and gradually getting to know the ropes - we were lucky to be able to take a rather shorter route by picking their brains and absorbing their considerable 'know how'.

Duly refreshed and enthused we ventured outside to meet mums and babes to consider what makes for a 'good' member of the breed - one lucky soul demonstrated for us (with some help from Richard) what it was like to wear a halter/head collar for the first time - he (the sheep) wasn't overly impressed but soon calmed down and we realised that we could even tame our own sheep...

We then made for the barn to admire several pens of beautiful sheep of varying size, age and sex and were taken through the basics of how to apply for a show, how to prepare our sheep, what to take with us, paperwork, what to do when we get there and, most importantly, how to behave in the ring.

And then we had 'The Show' - those patient animals finally got to strut their stuff! Four of us at a time lined up with our charges, arranging legs neatly (well, in theory), taking a turn up and down the barn and also down the show line (as in my case, up for others - I'm afraid that, amongst other things, I forgot the cardinal rule of 'always keep your eyes on the judge' as I was entranced by my ewe and we were having too much of a chat). Jo and Richard judged us and gave us some really useful and helpful feedback. Final queries were talked through, notes compared, more tea and cake consumed and we set off home contemplating when we might take the plunge and show our own! Many thanks to Jo and Richard for a lovely day.