The Royal Highland Show will be staging one of the world’s finest displays of livestock breeding with almost 5000 head of the UK’s best cattle, sheep, horses and goats entered for the 2010 event.
Show Manager David Dunsmuir said: “The full house signs are up and we already have a waiting list for some breeds in the cattle section. Once we add in the poultry and the entries for horse turnouts and private driving, we will have a stockyard featuring well over 5000 animals.
“Visitors will certainly see some fine examples of the best bloodlines from the extensive variety of breeds that make up our livestock industry – endorsing the claim that Britain is the stockyard of the world.”
With 22 breeds on show, plus classes for commercial exhibits and young handlers, sheep entries lead the way standing at 1673. For the first time, the Beltex breed has overtaken the Texels with an impressive 245 entries with the latter at 215. Other sections with three figure entries include Shetland with 109, Blue-faced Leicester with 104 and commercial sheep, including prime lambs, at 108.
With the 2010 World Shorthorn Conference embracing the show, the breed predominates in both the beef and dairy cattle lines.
There are 137 Beef Shorthorns listed in a beef cattle entry of 958. British Limousin are next with 112, followed by Aberdeen-Angus at 97. More than a third of the dairy cattle entries of 147 are Dairy Shorthorn with 52.
The light horse section, which features nine Horse of the Year qualifiers, has over 1500 entries. Largest sections are Hunters under Saddle with 150, Mountain and Moorland under Saddle with 144, Coloureds with 118 and Working Hunter Ponies with 111. In heavy horse, Highland Ponies have the top entry with 159 - 98 females and 61 males.