Superstars in interbreed

And, while all the exhibitors looked delighted to have reached the pinnacle of the competition, young Will Schilling of Glenlee Park Border Leicester stud, Vic, seemed most overwhelmed.

Mr Schilling's Glenlee stud won supreme long wool exhibit with his champion Border Leicester ewe.

He was just 12 when he fell in love with Border Leicesters. When the teenage Mr Schilling began accumulating ewes for his Glenlee Park stud, his grandfather and Merino breeder Mervyn Schilling became his greatest supporter.

"I'd never won a broad ribbon at Bendigo when my grandfather passed away four months ago," he said.

"All I could think about when I won was how proud he would've been and what he would have said."

Mr Schilling said the winning 11-month-old ewe was the culmination of a focus on breeding sheep with strong hindquarters, well-sprung ribs and good feet and legs.

Far more seasoned exhibitor, Ardene Australian White stud, Mt Torrens, South Australia, won supreme interbreed cleanskin with its ewe.

Owners, Bruce and Jannie Hodgson, established the stud in 2012.

While Australian Whites have average weights of 70 to 75 kilograms for ewes and 110 to 120kg for rams, Mr Hodgson said they did not need to be "massive" to be profitable.

"We get a 54 per cent yield in carcase compared to the industry average of 45 to 48pc and you can run 30pc more Australian Whites than crossbreds," Mr Hodgson said.

Mallee Park Poll Dorset stud of Tim and Marianne Ferguson, Hopetoun, Vic, won supreme interbreed short wool exhibit with their champion ewe.

The 1.5 year-old ewe was sired by the $18,000 Kurralea ram which Mr Ferguson judged as junior champion of the 2017 Adelaide Royal Show.

This ram sired nine of the stud's 11 sheep at Bendigo.

"He has bred the type of sheep that I like, good clean open faces and plenty of meat, and this ewe is a good representative of how he has bred," Mr Ferguson said.

Interbreed group judging gave judges a hard task in each section however, the supreme short wool group and coveted Australian Stud Sheep Breeders Association (ASSBA) award was won for a back-to-back second year by the Frost family's Hillden Poll Dorset stud, Bannister.

The ram leading the group was the reserve senior champion coming out of the bare-shorn pair, having also won the mixed pair with one of the group's ewes.

The two ewes had won the bare-shorn class and all were 16 months of age. The ram's sire was Hillden 730.16, supreme champion at Bendigo and Melbourne Royal shows in 2017, while one ewe was by Tattykeel 90, bought for Tattykeel sale top price of $17,500 in 2015.

The other ewe was by Hillden 122.16, the reserve senior champion at NSW Cowra Dorset Championships in 2017 and her dam is a full sister to Hillden 123.10 (Easy As) the supreme champion in every major show in Australia in 2011.

The Sweeney family's Bindaree stud, Merrygoen, took out the long wool supreme honours with the supreme champion ram and the winning woolley ewe pair.

Supreme cleanskin group shown by Bruce and Jannie Hodgson, Ardene Australian White stud, was made up of their champion Australian White ram and two ewes from the May 2018 Ardene drop, all sired by Ardene rams and from homebred stud ewes.