Newbury Show’s return welcomed by livestock farmers

Farmers travelled from all over the country to exhibit their livestock at the Newbury Show on the weekend, with several of them pleased to see the return of the agricultural event.

After three years off, the show staged over 100 competitive livestock classes for cattle, pigs and sheep.

Although this was greatly reduced from previous years, most farmers were just glad to be back and were optimistic for the show’s future.

George Anstie of Glebefield in Newtown brought four of his 15-strong flock of Southdown sheep to the show.

Mr Anstie was diagnosed with mild cerebral palsy at six months old and as well as looking after his award-winning flock, he has also competed for England at the Cerebral Palsy World Games, gaining a silver medal in discus.

One of the rams of the Glebefield Southdown flock is called Hector and he took home the first prize for short wool – ram shearling or older on Saturday.

Hector is particularly fond of rich tea biscuits and was an unexpected victor, having only been prepared to present at the show the previous week.

Mr Anstie’s mother Sue Anstie said they were “very pleased” to be back at the Newbury Show.

She added: “It is really nice to be back and hopefully it will grow. Obviously in 2019, it was a huge show of sheep and it’s a small selection [this year], but it has been very nice.”

Steve Davis brought his 18-month-old bull Bloomfield Supreme from Bloomfield Hatch Farm in Mortimer and picked up second prize in any other native – bull open.

He has been coming to the Newbury Show since the mid-80s and was glad to be back.

Although Mr Davis wished there were more cattle at this year’s show, he was impressed that the show organisers were able to get the event off the ground in the current climate after three years off.

He said: “Fair play to the people that have got it going again because I think Amazon were trying to buy the place to build a big centre here.

“I don’t know exactly what happened but they managed to stop it and keep the show going. They’ve got their foot in the water this year and hopefully next year, it’ll grow back to what it used to be.”

Sarah Mitchell brought five English goats all the way from Dorset’s Wells Farm which is located in Chideock near Bridport.

There wasn’t space for a goat competition at the show this year, but Ms Mitchell was invited to bring some of her animals back to the showground for 2023, having competed at both the 2018 and 2019 shows.

She said: “It’s a great show. It’s a shame it’s on a bootlace this year but it can only go up. If it goes down it won’t be here and that would be really sad.

“All the shows are really taking a hammering because of Covid and everything else and disease.

“There aren’t a lot of cattle here because of tuberculosis restrictions. We can’t have the chickens here because of the avian flu restrictions.”

Ms Mitchell praised the show organisers for managing to put the show on and was hopeful that the goat competition would return in 2024.