Vale View sells top priced Droughtmaster bull at Central Reds sale

Two years of offering bulls and two sale topping performances is what Dave, Colleen and Mac Smith of Vale View stud at Manumbar were able to claim at the conclusion of the Central Reds Droughtmaster sale at the Emerald saleyards on Tuesday.

They sold the top priced bull, Vale View Carrigan 2, for $16,000 and managed a stud average of $10,416 on the day.

"We're over the moon with that - it better than doubled last year's average," stud principal Dave Smith said.

Last in the six-vendor catalogue, they sold four of the top five priced bulls on the day.

Related: Top of $11,000 at Central Reds 2019 sale

It was Jeff and Sue Trott of Thooruna, Mundubbera, who fought off other bidders for Vale View Carrigan 2, their only purchase of the day, and one that they made a 10-hour round trip for.

Mr Trott, who has been using Droughtmasters for around a dozen years to minimise the Brahman content of the herd they inherited without losing it all, said he liked the structural soundness of the bull, as well as being a poll.

The 23-month-old incoming sire weighed 770kg and had an eye muscle area of 133 square centimetres.

"We know the breed, we've bought them before," Mr Trott said. "We saw the bull when we inspected it at home, and they said they were bringing it to this sale, so here we are."

Dave Smith said he was a pretty complete animal going by the figures, and said his dam, Vale View Velvet was one of the stud's best.

He was sired by Vale View Ripper, who also bred the homozygous polled Vale View Billion 2, sold for $11,000 to D and A Marks, Winvic, Clermont.

RA and TN Kajewski, Springsure, bought Vale View Yes Man for $13,000 while M Anger and J Hochmuth from Monogorilby in the North Burnett made their only purchase of the sale, of $11,000 for Vale View Coxy.

The sale's second top price, $15,000 belonged to Cec and Elaine Pelling's Fernleigh Droughtmasters, who sold the homozygous polled Fernleigh 716 to JS Howard of Hyde Park, Jericho.

Aged 21 months, he weighed 725kg and had an EMA of 130sq cm.

Selling one other bull from their draft of five, for $4000 to KSS Cattle at Emerald, Fernleigh finished with an average of $9500.

Andrew and Sonya Harvey, representing Kenlogan Droughtmasters at Clermont, sold their only homozygous polled bull, Kenlogan 920 for $9000 to North Tullamore Pastoral at Alpha.

Johnny Sparrow at North Tullamore finished with four bulls from the sale for an average of $6000 while JS Howard also took home four bulls to Jericho, for an average of $7875.

The highest priced bull sold by Kevin and Leesa Woolcock, Mostyndale, Springsure was Mostyndale 903, sired by Vale View Zed, for $7000 to North Tullamore.

Brad and Kerryn Piggott, Christmas Creek, received a top price of $6500, while Greg and Donna Edwards, Wolfang Droughtmasters at Wowan, had two equal top prices of $5500.