Yanco Agricultural High School student Hamish Maclure, Tarcutta, has been making headlines for his natural talent when it comes to showing cattle.
Now 13-years-old, Mr Maclure became involved in agriculture and beef cattle at a young age through his familys 2023 hectare farm where they run 9000 sheep and 200 head of Angus cattle.
Despite having a background in commercial production he started showing cattle through school three years ago, before he broke off and began doing it himself.
Along with his brother Edward, 11, the pair is hands-on in taking care of everything that goes into the preparation of show steers.
We select the steers, break them in, come up with a ration and feed them. I clip them and teach Edward as we go, Hamish Maclure said.
Since the start of the year, the Maclures have clocked up some kilometers travelling to the Royal Canberra Show, Tallangatta Show in Victoria, and the Henty Show before heading to the Sydney Royal Show in March.
This year has been one for the books for the young beef enthusiast, with many personal triumphs. I won my heat in the RAS/ASC beef cattle paraders final and then went on to be the reserve champion, Mr Maclure said.
We received champion steer on the hook at Tallangatta with an Angus steer.
In addition to these wins, he was the reserve champion parader of the Henty Show and at the Royal Canberra Show in February he was the champion junior judge and a second placegetter in his paraders heat. He will now be the associate judge at the 2019 Royal Canberra Show.
In 2017 he was the Murray Grey Youth Junior Ambassador and with this scholarship he attended the South Australia Junior Heifer Expo where he received an encouragement award.
At the 2017 National All Breeds Junior Heifer Show he received a scholarship to attend the Limousin Youth Show at Coonabarabran in this coming July.
Our steers have been going well. Steers we took to Gundagai and Henty last year won two from two shows, he said. We breed some of our own steers and do a 50/50 share with David McDonald. I mainly work with Angus and Charolais cross Red Angus cattle.
David McDonald from Warramong, Tarcutta, runs a commercial herd of 200 Charolais Red Angus cross cows which are joined to Red Angus bulls. He also runs up to 35 commercial Red Angus cows which are joined to Charolais bulls to get the desired cross.
The boys and their father, Dave Maclure, come over and we go through and select the steers to be prepared for shows. We just weaned the steers chosen for Melbourne Royal later in the year," Mr McDonald said.
I travel to shows to see how the boys and the steers go. I am impressed with the ability and drive of the pair.
Mr McDonald has encouraged the involvement of youth in the beef industry for years, giving heifers to junior members across the country.
I like to see kids be involved in the cattle industry and give them an interest. I think both the Maclure boys have the drive behind them to succeed in whatever they wish to do, he said.
Mr Maclure wants to increase his involvement in steer showing rather than branch into stud production, with the ultimate goal of getting a trade before he plans to return to the farm.
Clocking up an impressive 20 shows a year, Mr Maclure said their next major show is Melbourne Royal in September, with local and youth shows in between.