BREEDER Charles Scott from Hawick celebrated his first show of the season at Ayr by winning the Zwartbles breed championship on Saturday.
The 82-year-old of Viewfields, East Middle, took the top ticket with his homebred two crop ewe, East Middle Solerina.
He said: “She’s one of the best ewes for confirmation we’ve ever had. I’ve shown four different breeds of sheep and won championships at national shows with all of them, but this one is the most correct and nearest to perfection of any of them.“
Out of a homebred ewe which was a championship winner over four years, Solerina’s sire, also homebred, was a national show champion too.
Ayr was only the ewe’s sixth show. She was not shown as a lamb or last year, but as a shearling was reserve champion and homebred champion of the breed’s first national show at Malvern in 2011. She also took the reserve female ticket at the Great Yorkshire Show the same year.
Mr Scott picked up other tickets at Ayr including winning the group of three.
From the Borthwick Valley, the former jockey first farmed at home at Milsington, where the family produced South Country Cheviot winners.
He next enjoyed success with Scotch Halfbreds, once taking the interbreed ticket at the Highland Show in the 1950s. He moved to the 360-acre East Middle, his uncle’s farm, in 1962 and changed to Texels in the early 70s. He bought his first Zwartbles in 2002 and has 25 ewes on the 13 acres he retained when he retired. He plans to show Solerina next at the Northumberland County Show on May 27.