Judges for this year’s Clogher Valley Show have travelled from all over the British Isles.

Yesterday (Wednesday), the judges were in the showrings early to make their decisions on the placings of the livestock.

One of those was Gerald Blandford, who with his wife, Rosemary, had made the trip to the Clogher Valley from their home in Herefordshire.

He was judging the Hereford cattle with around 70 animals paraded as part of the National Hereford Show being hosted at Clogher Valley this year.

Gerald, who used to run a 90-cow pedigree herd, has reduced this to around 20 cows now and with his son, have embarked on a cider making enterprise as well.

Gerald is President of the Hereford Cattle Society this year and had visited the Balmoral Show earlier this year.

He says the modern Hereford animal has good conformation now and the meat is so succulent as the animals are mainly fed from grass.

He praised breeders in Ireland for being at the forefront of developments in the breed.

Also judging at Clogher Valley Show were Tim Webster, from Melton Mowbray Market in Leicestershire and Charles Mason from the Humane Slaughter Association. They were jointly judging the commercial cattle.

Tim sells the fat cattle at the weekly market and at Tuesday’s sale, the top price was £2.40 per kg for a Limousin, sold for Morrisons. He explained that his saleyard is one of just three where cattle are bought for the Morrisons supermarket chain.

As his first time in Northern Ireland, he was looking forward to meeting cattle producers.

He also revealed he will be the auctioneer at this year’s Smithfield Show to be held at the East of England Showgrounds at Peterborough at the end of November.

Charles Mason works for the charity, Humane Slaughter Association, advising and educating those in the industry on mainly welfare issues. The charity promotes education and training.

They were both looking forward to seeing the line-up of animals in the commercial section.