It was a win that almost never happened!
The Bassingthwaighte family have a long and successful history in the Santa Gertrudis stud breeding industry, and that experience made them question if their bull, Yarrawonga Fixer, was in top show condition to be competitive at this year’s Royal Queensland Show.
That depth of knowledge paid off with a decision to show Fixer and with some luck the bull found his bloom shortly before the Ekka with less than perfect preparation.
“We most likely mated him for about a month too long before preparing to bring him back up to show condition, to the point about four weeks ago we thought he wasn’t going to make it,” Andrew Bassingthwaighte said.
“It was simply due to the fact we had kept him in the paddock mating for too long.”
He’s got all the weight but is a slightly smaller framed bull.
- Andrew Bassingthwaighte
But, last Friday there were smiles and tears of joy for the entire Bassingthwaighte and Ferguson families as interbreed judge Brett Nobbs named Yarrawonga Fixer as the 2017 Royal Queensland Show Champion of Champions bull.
“Our Fixer bull has been able to achieve what his sire Yarrawonga Corvette did, which was win both junior champion bull and return to win senior champion at Ekka,” Andrew said.
Yarrawonga Fixer also won the Santa Gertrudis Feature Show at Wandoan in 2016.
“He’s got all the weight but is a slightly smaller framed bull, compared to the traditional Santa Gertrudis type, with only a 7 or 8 frame score,” Andrew said.
“Talking to a lot of the successful cattle breeders, they aren’t just wanting size. High performing cattle are those that can slightly reduce their size but also maintain the weight and capacity with a bit of extra fat cover and also lift their fertility.
“At the moment we are getting the perfect cross of bulls with our older, larger framed cows and a selection of sires, but the terrifying thing is when we lose those larger-framed cows.
“We must maintain diversity in our breeding genetics so as to not end up reducing frame size significantly with the direction of slightly more moderate framed bulls.
“We believe Fixer is a more modern style of Santa Gertrudis bull.”
Yarrawonga Fixer won’t be able to rest after his big show win with the bull being traveled to Adelaide in a fortnight for this year’s Santa Gertrudis Feature Show.
Andrew said after Fixer returns from the feature show he has a paddock of 60 cows picked out for the bull.
