The Toogoolawah feature show held on June 10, proved a great success for the Simmental breed with bull KBV Legacy (P) and female Elite Black Opal L107 named the interbreed champions from 320 exhibits.
A total of 52 Simmental exhibits were paraded by nine exhibitors including: Elite Cattle Co; KBV; Meldon Park; Ellendale; Trinity Vale; Clay Gully; Tanvale; Hidden Valley; and Coal Creek.
Kim Groner, Elite Cattle Co, Meandarra, said it was great to see the breed so well represented at the show.
“It gave local producers a chance to have a thorough look over cattle which they may end up purchasing as herd sires, and to receive the accolades we did will hopefully put us in good stead with them,” she said.
Marty Rowlands, KBV Simmentals, Murphys Creek said the advantages of hybrid vigour from the Simmental breed from Traditionals, Reds or Blacks were present at the show and “displayed the versatility of our breed”.
He said Senior and Grand Champion Simmental Bull, KBV Legacy (P) sired by Bar 5 SA Harrach, was the Reserve Junior Champion Bull at Ekka last year and won the Malcolm McCosker Memorial Supreme Beef exhibit at the 2017 Toowoomba Royal.
“We have been watching him grow into arguably the best bull KBV has ever bred. He has all the attributes we look for in a sire coupled with tremendous growth and carcase attributes.
“We’ve placed heavy emphasis on our breeding program over the years to ensure we are meeting the market requirements of our buyers.”
“All the hard work leading up to an event like this really pays off when you take home the big award.”
He said Legacy will be shown at Ekka this year and will be KBV’s lead bull at the 2017 Meldon Park Simmental Bull Sale in September.
Elite Black Opal L107 (P) – which also won Junior Champion Female Simmental, Grand Champion Female Simmental, and Supreme Simmental Exhibit – was praised by the judges for her overall softness, length, depth of body, feminine outlook and thickness.
We have grand plans for the newly minted champion, which is currently in-calf.
“We’ll retain her in the stud and if all goes well we’ll bring her back to compete next year with a calf at foot.”
They hopes Black Opal L107’s success will open the doors for the Black variety, which aren’t heavily used in Queensland at present.
“We’ve been in Blacks for three years. We imported lots of different genetics from Canada to see what worked well in Australia, and we’ve since purchased more genetics from stud breeders domestically.
“We’ll be selling our first run this year on-property, and we’re doing extensive ET work to hopefully double our numbers by 2018.”