Galys Vray and Ashlyn Vray Goldwyn were crowned grand and reserve grand champion at the All-European Holstein Show in Colmar, France, last week.

The Vray herd, located in west France, is run by Jean-Paul and Françoise Bichon. While both animals were bred by the team at Vray, unusually neither were owned by them.

Galys Vray, which secured the overall grand champion, was sold as a two-year-old at the French National to Junker and Stuab from Switzerland and All-Be-Ro from Italy. Galys is no stranger to success, having won the two-year-old champion SPACE 2013, junior milking champion Swiss Expo 2014, reserve grand champion Swiss Expo 2015 and the grand champion at the Swiss Expo this year.

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Sired by Atwood and back on a Damion-bred cow, Galys has several generations of VG or Excellent and comes from the same family as sire Besne Buck. Now five years old and having milked over 12,000kg in her second lactation, she classified EX94 in her most recent evaluation.

Standing reserve grand champion was Ashlyn Vray Goldwyn. Now ten years old, Ashlyn was one of the favourites going into the championships, having secured reserve senior champion at the All-European contest in Freiburg in 2013. Sired by Goldwyn, Ashlyn recently scored EX96 for the second time. Owners here are Ponderosa Holsteins of Spain.

The two cows were earlier placed first in their respective classes before being placed senior and reserve senior champions and eventually grand and reserve grand champions, with Ashlyn also achieving best udder of the class.