We are proud to catalogue 18 rising 2 year old purebred Simmental Bulls for sale from our herd of 65 registered purebred Simmental cows.

            This year’s catalogue includes 6 young bulls by Glen Anthony Y-arta and 8 by the new Homozygous polled bull Prostock Hugo from North America. Sadly only 5 of these bulls are clean polled with another 5 being scurred. All scurred bulls have never been dehorned.

            After a good Spring and early Summer, grass growth was excellent and the sale bulls were ahead of last year’s bulls on weight gain. However since the end of January El Nino has hit us hard and we have been in drought mode ever since. Silage and hay feeding has been the order of the day for the last two months.

            What a change around from last year. Central Hawke’s Bay is dry, dry and bare while East Coast farmers north of Tutira, through Wairoa to Gisborne have enjoyed one of the best seasons ever. This was reflected in the excellent weight of weaner steers coming forward to the weaner fairs in March. Not only were they well grown but buyers were prepared to pay up to $4.00 a kilogram of live weight for them. This generated such newspaper headings as “Demand Red Hot in Weaner Sales” and “Strong Sale Best Seen”.

            Prices for Simmental weaner steers ranged from $1100 in the early March sales at Stortford up to $1300 in Hawera, Rangiruru in the Bay of Plenty and in Taupo in May a line of full blood Simmental weaner bulls sold in excess of $1300.

            Congratulations to Glen Anthony bull buyers John and Jenny Chesterman of  Waimarama, Bruce and Sue Wilson of Hawera, Keith and Joy Clarke of Te Puke and John and Allison Lozell of Taupo.

            With great anticipation everybody at Glen Anthony looked forward to a New Zealand Royal Show being held once again in Hastings. Held at the Tomoana show grounds on the 22^nd and 23^rd of  October 2015 in fine but cool weather the Royal Show attracted a strong entry of quality cattle from Raglan in the North to Taranaki in the West.

            Glen Anthony and Sue Wylie made up the Simmental section of 25 entries, and the Angus section was noted for the large entry of Angus yearling heifers. There was a strong Hereford entry, several quality Charolais and some excellent Gelbvieh cattle. Overall a really good turn out of Beef cattle.

            On the first day Glen Anthony Yale was judged Supreme Champion Simmental but could only manage 3^rd in the Meat and Wool Cup.

            A lovely black Gelbvieh cow with twin heifer calves won the cup with the Senior Hereford Bull in second place. In the Interbreed judging on the first day Sue Wylie won the Champion Yearling Bull Class with Ratalea Captain.

            Glen Anthony cattle did not fare as well as usual in the All Breeds judging at this Royal Show. We had some success in the yearling classes where Cocopop was third in the Yearling Heifer, Caesar a close second in the Yearling Bull with Chicago fourth, and our Yearling Pairs 2^nd and 3^rd in their class.

            Brocade was the only winner in the Senior Classes taking out first place in Two Year old Heifer Performance Class.

            Congratulations to Sue Wylie who made sure the Simmental breed were represented in the Senior Classes with her 5 year old cow Ratalea Taylor coming second in the Senior Cow Class and Ratalea Anchor second in the Senior Bull.

The lack of success this year in the cattle judging was completely over shadowed by a surprise presentation during the Meat and Wool Cup event. Rob Patello gave a “This is Your Life”

presentation about Glennis and Tony Thompson over the public address system and then John Grigg President of the Royal  Agricultural Society came forward and presented Tony with the RAS gold medal.

            Quite a day!

            Exhibitor numbers at this years Dannevirke Show were down in the Older Beef Cattle Classes but were compensated by a large entry of calves.

            The Glen Anthony team faced less competition than expected and apart from Simon Colins winning the Yearling Heifer Class with a very good Charolais heifer Glen Anthony dominated, taking out the four Championship awards and the Meat and Wool Cup with Glen Anthony Yale. Interesting to note that both the male and female junior championships were won by two outstanding Glen Anthony Calves who were placed above the winners of the Yearling Classes.

            Glen Anthony took a large team of cattle to the Royal Easter Show in Auckland this year along with Sue Wylie’s show team.

            Y-arta was judged Supreme Champion Simmental and won the All Breeds Senior Bull Class but was well beaten in the Meat and Wool Cup which was taken out by the Gelbvieh cow and her twin calves.

            The competition was very strong at this years show with an excellent team of Charolais cattle, Karen Woolly’s large entry of Big Saler cattle and of course the Gelbviehs from Raglan. Glen Anthony only came away with several minor placings in the usually successful All Breed Classes.

            Thanks to Kimberley and Mark, Kerry Arnold, Ella Tweedie and the new girl Hana Linssen from Blenheim for working so hard to make the entry to the Royal Easter Show possible.

Glen Anthony again supported Future Beef this year by training three steers from Tutira for the Woodford girls to lead, providing three heifers for 12 year old children to lead and providing four heifers for the children’s judging modules.

            The highlight this year was the way young Tayla Hansen from Taupiri handled Glen Anthony Duchess to win the Champion Heifer Class. Well done Tayla.

            No Report of the 2015 to 2016 Year could be complete without congratulating Amy Hoogenbloom on such a stella year as Senior Future Beef Ambassador. Several trips to Australia, visiting lots of Studs and Shows throughout New Zealand, helping with the selection and preparation of steers for the Future Beef Competition and even helping with the selection of our Glen Anthony entries both bulls and heifers for this year’s Beef Expo. Amy had the honour of being appointed assistant All Breeds Judge at the 2015 Royal Show and had the distinction of being a Senior Judge at this year’s Beef Expo judging the Gelbvieh breed and the Champion of Champions. So well done Amy. We are so proud of you contributing so much to our Beef Industry all the while studying for your Veterinary Degree.

            Our heifers did us proud at Beef Expo this year with AD 39 winning Reserve Champion in the Allflex Heifer Competition paraded by Tony himself, “The youngest handler in the competition”, 71 years young! Those young handlers out there have a very long career

ahead of them if they so choose.

            At Beef Expo 2016 Yearling heifer AD 39 sold to Leaflands Stud from Mosgiel, AD 13 sold to Tom Hanson of Gisborne and AD 21 to Jo Barclay of Te Awamutu. We also sold two rising two year old bulls, Glen Anthony Caesar to Sarah and John Hammond of Northland and Glen Anthony Casanover to Bruce and Sue Wilson of Hawera.

            In closing Glennis and Tony would like to invite you to our 28^th Annual Bull Sale on the farm at 825 Farm Road • Waipukurau on Friday 10th June 2016.

Inspection is welcome from 10.30am
with light refreshments available
and the sale starting at 12.30pm.