SHE'S one of the country's most decorated Boer goats but doe Micathel Oheo is also a crowd favourite.
The 2015 Sydney Royal best in show winner from Marie Barnes' Micathel stud at Cudal was placed top of a very competitive field of 270 Boer goats hailing from throughout NSW and into Victoria and South Australia.
Judge Phillip Botha, from South Africa, liked Oheo's structural soundness, exceptional length of body and extreme femininity but there's little doubt her delightful temperament also played a role.
According to Miss Barnes the four-and-a-half-year-old Oheo loves nothing more than showing and interacting with the public is her speciality.
Micathel had a team of 38 head at this year's Sydney Royal, with the Boer goat competition doubling as the national breed show.
The stud was named most successful exhibitor, a title Micathel has collected for three out of the past four years.
Oheo has won her class every year since she was a weaner at the Sydney Royal.
This year, in a first for the Sydney show, she combined with her daughter Micathel Ohie to collect the senior and reserve senior champion Boer doe ribbons.
The Micathel team had just returned from the 13-hour trip to Toowoomba for the Queensland State Championships where the stud also won supreme exhibit and most successful exhibitor.
Miss Barnes said strict selection criteria that constantly pushes structural correctness, longevity and fertility formed the basis of breeding at Micathel and the fact her champions were proving themselves time and again via their progeny was satisfying.
Second on the pointscore for most successful exhibitor at Sydney Royal was Paul and Jan Ormbsby's Mugambi stud at Forbes, which had a team of 26 and collected the grand champion buck via Mugambi Merlon, which was the NSW State Champion last year and the year before.
Mugambi also won reserve champion buck via Mugambi Gold and grand champion kid buck with Mugambi Cochise, along with collecting numerous wins in the kid classes.
Tracey Wood's Pacifica and her husband Richard Zidarew's Kennedy Creek, both at Eugowra, dominated the objective measurement classes, with Kennedy Creek winning group of does plus the main individual title and Pacifica doing the same with the bucks.
Most successful red Boer goat exhibitor was Alisha Carlon and Kassandra Palmer's Kazleesha stud at Cobbitty, near Camden.
Shan Goodwin
Journalist for The Land on the North Coast.
Journalist for The Land on the North Coast.
