The British Simmental Cattle Society kicked off proceedings for the second weekend of showing in United Auctions Stirling on Sunday 18 February.

Adding to an already busy weekend for Stuart Barclay of the Harestone herd who is holding a production sale of Charolais females on Monday in Striling, Stuart also had the difficult job of placing just over 160 bulls.

The quality of bulls on show was very strong which made Barclay’s job even more difficult. Nonetheless, in just a few short hours, the champions have all been selected and the results are as follows.

Championships

Following on from a successful autumn sale season, Richard McCulloch’s Overhill House Nikey 22 secured the intermediate championship before going on to be tapped forward as the supreme overall champion.

The May 2022-born bull is sired by Pistyll Kingsman 19 and he is bred from a Mohona Fletcher dam. Nikey’s sire, Pistyll Kingsman also bred the 46,000gns all-time breed record bull, Overhill House Neo back in October 2023.

The reserve intermediate championship was scooped by Denzies Nugget 22 from the herd of Michael and Alan Barlow.

The June 2022-born bull is sired by the homebred Denzies Hamish and his dam Ashland Topaz Janet was champion in Dungannon when she was purchased.

\Shanon Kinahan

After much deliberation, Stuart found his reserve supreme overall champion in Reece and Andrew Simmers’ Backmuir Nate 22. The April 2022-born bull had previously been tapped forward as the senior champion just a little while earlier.

Nate is sired by Wolfstar Jackaroo 18 and is bred from a Corrick Hayden dam. His sire Jackaroo was overall champion at the same show and sale back in February 2020 and has since bred sons to highs of 15,000gns.

The Simmers family didn’t let their winning streak end there, as their other April 2022-born bull Backmuir Nero 22 was tapped forward as the reserve senior championship.

Nero is sired by Backmuir King who was male champion at the Royal Highland Show in 2023 and is out of Starline Eva 30th, a daughter of Starline Exclusive.

The junior classes were some of the toughest classes of the day, but there could only be one winner.

The top spot in this section was awarded to Islavale Novak 22 from the Stronach family. The October 2022-born bull was sired by Coose Lincoln, a bull bred by John and Ronan Touhy from Co Clare and his dam is a daughter of Curaheen Giant.