Proud sheep tops Royal showdown

Simon and Fiona Prouting of Rocklea Stud, near Dannevirke with their south suffolk ram. Photo Supplied

It seemed like all power to Southern Hawke's Bay as another of the New Zealand Royal Show's top awards was picked-off as the show drew to a close in Hastings on Friday.

The Royal Agricultural Society Supreme Show Exhibit Award went to a south suffolk ram exhibited by Simon and Fiona Prouting of Rocklea Stud, near Dannevirke.

The biggest challenge for the honour, which was announced at the Grand Parade came from the cattle-section Meat and Wool Cup winning heifer from what Simon Prouting said was "just a quarter of an hour to 20 minutes up the road", at Hawke's Bay A and P Society president Simon Collin's Rauriki charolais stud near Ormondville.

Prouting said he hadn't realised what he was up against when he told the president he thought he'd be able to give the cattle winner a good run for the money and Collin told him: "That's my heifer."

RAS immediate past-president Geoff Smith, of Waikuku, said: "It was a toss-up. They were both supreme exhibits in their own right."

It was a "cracking result" for Prouting, proud that it was a "home-bred" champion.

Recognising there would have been more work preparing cattle for the show than it was for his sheep, he said: "We took 12. We select them about a week to 10 days before the show, fill the trailer up and go. We don't groom them up, we just put them in the pen and walk away."

Winners of the Supreme sheep award now three times in the last four years, it was the first time Rocklea had claimed the Supreme Exhibit award, emulating a success by Simon Prouting's father in a Royal Event at the Waimate A and P Show while he was running the stud he started in Canterbury in 1972.

The 2019 win came 20 years after he started his own stud with a flock of poll dorsets. The couple moved to the North Island in 2008 and established Rocklea South Suffolk Stud at Weber, and about 15 months ago moved closer to Dannevirke to base the stud at Mangahei Rd.

They have about 550 rams, and on December 6 stage their 12th on-farm sale, ever-hopeful of matching or bettering the peak price of $6000. About 150 will be sold.
Cattle usually steals the show, and Friday's win was an important piece of one-upmanship, with the sheep section having bounced back from the decline that cancelled it in 2010 because of declining entries.

The society stripped 200 gates from the open-side sheep pavilion, which had housed more than 1300 sheep in the show-week heyday, but it was back on again by the society's 150th anniversary show in 2013.

Simon Prouting praised the work of those who'd revived and grown the section, which includes a small show ring with tiered seating.

Society general manager Sally Jackson reiterated: "The numbers were really strong, and the initiatives brought on board by the sheep and cattle committee for the commercial classes have worked really well."

Attendance numbers for the three days of the 5th Royal Show in Hawke's Bay in a row were also expected to be good. Jackson says that despite the changeable weather, which brought rain, wind and sunshine, chilly but also occasionally warm temperatures, attendance figures may have gone close to 35,000.

"The weather was an incredible challenge, after three days of pure sunshine last year, polar opposites the last three days."

Among those in the crowd on Friday were Opposition National Party leader Simon Bridges, who as well as some political duties took part in some cattle judging, and Jacinda Ardern, reported "incognito" with a pram, back a day after attending in her official capacity as Prime Minister.