CHANDPARA wasted little time in making an impact on the Sydney Royal, cleaning up in the Southdown competition.
The Tylden operation continued Victoria's winning ways at the show by taking out the grand champion and reserve champion ram and ewe in this year's feature breed.
Chandpara stud principal Andrew Sellars-Jones said winning all the competition's major ribbons, including the group classes, was reward for effort.
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"It was my inaugural Sydney experience and while it was a huge effort to get here, it has been wonderful," Mr Sellars-Jones told The Land.
"I was really proud to be representing the breed as far as the Victorian Southdown goes and it was a pleasing result."
The two-year-old grand champion ewe and two-year-old grand champion ram impressed judge Kelvin Cronk, Old Junee, but Mr Sellars-Jones said he was unsure if he would get the chance to show his sheep.
"When it came to the pandemic, we sort of took the attitude of going for it and just seeing what happened," he said.
"I was just so keen to represent the breed and support the feature show that I was just hoping it would get the green light the entire time."
The victories were made even more special for the Chandpara team, as both the grand champion ram and ewe were both home bred.
"The champion ram was just one of those rams that was so special from the get go," Mr Sellars-Jones said.
"He was a twin, had a brother and his mother was a regular champion at shows, so he was shown as a lamb on his mother and won some grand champion lamb results in 2019, the year he was born.
"On the back of those results, there was obviously no shows last year, so I was so keen to show him this year because he is a home-bred ram and has a great length.
"The ewe is home bred as well, is a solid-upstanding ewe and was one of those lambs that caught our eye from the start, so I knew who I was picking from the paddock when I was choosing the show team and these two made it very easy."
Mr Cronk said there was only "a miniscule" amount separating all 21 exhibits in the competition.
"At the end of the day, I have to look for the differences and in this competition the differences were really small," he said.
"However, my grand champions both had good muscle cover, good bone strength and overall were a credit to the Southdown breed."
Mr Sellars-Jones said he would now shift his focus to "the Australian Wool and Sheep Show in Bendigo and then the Royal Melbourne".
"From there, the Southdown breed has our national show at the Royal Geelong," he said.
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