Paula Hynes: Our weekend at Dairy Expo - where the dairy industry meets
Georgie Hynes competing at UK Dairy Expo
This year St Patrick's weekend was very different; the year we went into Covid lockdown, we decided to hold a mini St. Patrick's Day parade on our farm. It was only something we did to amuse ourselves, but it ended up going viral on social media and was aired on nine TV news channels around the world.
Ever since we have always held little farm parades for the craic, but this year our youngest daughter Georgie and I headed off to Borderway UK Dairy Expo to meet up with her sister Becky, who had gone out to the UK two weeks beforehand.
Last year we watched the show on the livestream as we bought our heifer Panda Global Magic Red at the global connection sale, which is run in conjunction with Dairy Expo.
That heifer has been truly magic for us, as she has opened so many doors for Becky, and the duo have achieved a lot in the show ring together whilst we have also struck up a great friendship with her breeder, Molly Westwood.
Becky and team Panda Holsteins headed up to the show in Carlisle late on the Wednesday night in order to get the heifers settled ahead of the seven-hour journey from Devon. Georgie and I flew to Manchester late on the Thursday night and got a train to Carlisle early the next morning.
It was a joy to see our heifer Panda Rita Ora RC, a heifer which we own in partnership with Molly, as we hadn’t seen Rita since October 2023. Team Panda had a nice string of heifers for the show, four red and whites and four black and whites.
Georgie got straight down to business, getting to know the heifer she would be showing and also presenting her for a video as the heifer was being sold through the Global Connection sale. It was the first meeting for the duo and a first show for the Alpha heifer but they both took it in their stride and finished in second place in the junior showmanship, a class which comprised of 29 young handlers.
Becky also competed in the senior handlers coming out fourth in a very strong class of 26 handlers as well. With the showmanship finished, it was onto the Red and White Holstein classes, where team Panda won two Junior heifer classes before taking the championship and honourable mention along with premier breeder and exhibitor.
Moving onto the Black and White Junior Holstein classes late on Friday night, Rita Ora had a big task ahead with 32 entries in her class. Australian judge Ben Govett looked over each heifer in great detail, with Rita standing in first place for the first lineup as Ben looked closer and changed the lineup twice more, Rita held her position and took the red ribbon, with Ben even commenting that he could not find a fault in her - what a wonderful way to close out her junior show ring career, as she is now on a feeding regime in preparation to be flushed for embryos.
During the day, Georgie also got to spend some time with her new Jersey heifer, Ravina, who she hadn’t seen since December.Â
Ravina wasn’t in Carlisle to compete but was on her journey moving from Blythbridge Farm near Edinburgh down to her new base with Graham and Tasha Kirby in Lancashire, where she will be housed for the show season.
Pete wasn’t able to travel to Carlisle, but he watched the show's video feed online and said it was, without doubt, the most entertaining livestream commentary from any show he had watched.Â
Saturday at UK Dairy Expo was the turn of the milking dairy animals to grace the show ring, the Davis family travelled up from Devon with a team of Jerseys and had an outstanding show which we were chuffed with as they are really nice people. The Holstein cows were exceptional to watch, every class had strong lineups of topclass cows.Â
Our friends Izzy and Colin Laird had their four year old Sidekick cow Mag Pandor who they own with Ferne Blondin, she is a stunning cow, we had seen her at UK Dairy Day last September and she is everything anyone would want in a cow.Â
She matured well over the winter and won her four-year-old class before taking the Holstein championship and going on to stand as Grand Champion of the show. The celebrations from the Lairds just highlighted how much the win meant to them and as I chatted to Izzy later that night, she told me special moments like that make the hard slog of daily farm routine worthwhile. The Saturday evening was dominated by the All-Breeds All-Britain awards dinner, a great social occasion celebrating truly outstanding cows and a chance to catch up with friends after a busy show.
I caught up with Glyn Lucas at UK Dairy Expo, the organiser of the show and auctioneer with Harrison and Hetherington, he told me his vision back in 2012 was to create and develop an event to promote the UK dairy industry to a global audience. UK Dairy Expo has been running since then and certainly reaches a global audience with international judges as well as competitors and livestream viewers across the world.
Glyn said it takes patience, hard work and a great team to run the event which has continued to grow every year, this year attracting 10,000 visitors, The slogan is “where the dairy industry meets” and they certainly do with many travelling over 400 miles to the show. The big focus for the show is youth, the future leaders of the dairy industry, the young people who want to excel with dairy stock and the organisers push to inspire those youngsters.Â
With 113 competitors in the showmanship classes, it is safe to say the younger generation are inspired to compete at the show. 479 animals across all dairy breeds competed at the show over the two days watched by 11,000 online viewers and there was 100 trade exhibits for those who visited in person.Â
It’s safe to say Carlisle is home to one of the very best dairy shows in Europe. For Glyn and the organising team, the challenge is to add more space for the growing number of entries. I know Team Hynes will be back in 2025.
