STUDSTOCK agent Andrew Meara has worked at the Glen Innes Whiteface show and sale as part of the team at Elders for more than two decades, but his involvement in the sale began many years earlier, as a teenager.
Mr Meara was a vendor in the 1980s with Millbrook stud, and then spent a few years helping other vendors showing, before he became an agent.
"We had a commercial operation on the Darling Downs and bought through the Glen Innes sale as well," Mr Meara said.
Mr Meara has been attending as a selling agent for the past 24 years, and has been at the rostrum for most of those sales.
He said the Glen Innes event was a respected sale in the Hereford breed.
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"It's a renowned sale for the breed and one of the longest running sales in the country," he said.
"A lot of the studs that now have on-property sales started selling bulls at Glen Innes.
"That's where they kicked off, and they've developed from there.
"Multi-vendor sales are there for the smaller breeders to offer their bulls, and I think a lot of breed societies undervalue mutli-vendor sales, but that's where you encourage new breeders to get into the breed.
"Without these bulls the new, or small, studs don't have the outlet for their bulls."
Among Mr Meara's highlights from the Glen Innes event over the years was selling the $45,000 record breaking bull, Battalion Black Hawk K7 (H), in 2016.
The top price record had been set the previous year, with Cara Park Unique J324 making $30,000 in the sale's 70th year.
"We've seen a few reords broken over the years," Mr Meara said.
"There are stud and commercial bulls at Glen Innes, and some have gon eon to be impact bulls in different programs."
Mr Meara said this year's catalogue was of a high standrad.
"We've got a reduced number but the quality is as good as I've seen it.
"With the dry conditions over the last couple of years our vendors have had to make the choice to reduce numbers and only keep the very best, which is reflected in the number of bulls on offer, but also with the quality being very good."
With the dry conditions over the last couple of years our vendors have had to make the choice to reduce numbers and only keep the very best, which is reflected in the number of bulls on offer, but also with the quality being very good.
- Agent Andrew Meara
