Santa groom prepares for show day

He sized the opportunity to work as a stud cattle groom for the Santa Gertrudis breed at this year’s Royal Queensland Show.  

He is one of a large cattle fitting teaming who work for Scott Ferguson’s Santa Gertrudis cattle fitting service. 

Isaac said he’s enjoying the experience and learning a lot along the way.

“It’s great to be surrounded by other talented stud cattle grooms and have the chance to learn more about the trade of presenting cattle for showing,” he said.

Isaac arrived on Sunday to the big lights of Brisbane with the Santa Gertrudis stud cattle being unloaded off trucks at the Royal Queensland Showgrounds near the city.

A more than 100 head of Santa Gertrudis cattle will be shown at this year’s Royal Queensland Show with Isaac and the rest of the cattle fitting team he works with looking after 96 head of Santa cattle over the next week.

At just 16 years old, Isaac has all ready gained plenty of experience showing cattle with his Downlands College show team where he goes to school in Toowoomba.

“It’s great when you work hard to get a beast looking the best it can for show day and everything comes together, it’s a great feeling,” Isaac said.

“Cattle showing is an important part of the stud cattle industry and a good way I think to market your cattle to a large amount of different cattle producers.

“I like to focus on doing the best I can for client’s cattle and it takes a lot of preparation to get cattle ready for a big show like the Ekka.

Isaac will step out to parade the Santa Gertrudis stud cattle on Thursday and hopes everything goes to plan. 

“I’m always a little nervous showing cattle especially since it’s my first time here at the Ekka showing Santa cattle,” he said.  

“There are some many great looking Santa cattle here at the Ekka this year and it’s been good fun washing and grooming them all ready for the big show day.

“It feels like a step up after only showing cattle with the school team.”