CHAMPION BULLS

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 29051, 13 November 1959, Page 2

CHAMPION BULLS

Mrs Willan Has Two Successes

A young snow-white Ayrshire bull, with considerable charm, Mawhera Royalist, sustained the honour of his lineage when he became junior champion of the Ayrshire yearling bulls at. the Metropolitan Show. This excellent beginning may be the forerunner of a career as distinguished as his father’s. The five-year-old sire, Hazelburn Bruce, was judged the champion in his class for the second year in succession and has many show prizes to his credit.

“Young Roy” as his mistress. Mrs J Willan, of Little River, affectionately calls the yearling, has manners as quiet and endearing as those of his father. He had been a pet to children in the neighbourhood, Mrs Willan said. “I cannot understand why some people claim Ayrshires are wild; I have found them particularly docile,” she said. It could have been the rather fearsome horns of the breed that gave the animals a bad reputation, Mrs Willan said.

She bred Roy herself and prepared both her bulls for showing. Four hours a day were spent in their grooming for some time before the show. “It has been a lot of hard work, but the reward has amply justified it,” Mrs Willan said proudly. Roy’s sister, Rata, also appeared in the show as an entry in the children’s calf class with Pauline Swaney, a neighbour of the Willan farm.