Call me Judas, but Mary Harney was right when she said to “shop around”.

Though previous snaps and ramblings paint a different picture, there are no breed allegiances in this corner. Sure, there’s an obvious bias towards the classic continental at present, but this is simply because their numbers are in line with what we want to achieve. There would be minimal qualms about jumping ship should any colour of beast with the correct digits suddenly grace the pages of my AI catalogue.

Importantly, by digits I refer to both expected performance and reliability. The latter of the two figures is positively crucial. In real-world terms, Cristiano Ronaldo is a five-star finisher, as is Manchester United’s new wonder kid Anthony Martial. But, at just 20 years of age, Martial is relatively unproven – promise and potential only go so far. Who would you rather have on your team?

Back to the breed conundrum. Though a terminal-trait-shift has occurred in recent decades, we are also witnessing the advent of the within-breed “hybrid”. That is, bulls that can do jobs that they shouldn’t be able to do.

Fantastic all-rounder bulls

The Limousin breed boasts some fantastic all-rounder bulls like Wilodge Cerberus, who ranks fourth for carcase weight on the terminal active beef bull list (from a selection of almost 400 bulls), as well as having the fourth-best index ranking of 52 Limousin bulls for daughter milk. This bull also breaks the mould somewhat in that his outlandish carcase weight value hasn’t inflated his corresponding calving difficulty figure – it’s almost half that of our current favourite bull, Lisnagre Elite (CH), whose carcase weight index value is 21% lower than his orange compatriot. Wilodge’s reliability figures are reassuringly high too, but alas so is his price.

One parts with almost €100 for a shot of the good stuff. How’s your aim?