It was a flying trip to the east coast of NZ this year but essential for us as many bulls catalogued this year reflect our own breeding program.

There were 13 Stern Gladiator 768 sons and 10 Kaharau Clarion 844 sons offered- both have progeny in our sale this year. We managed to fit in most of the sales, kicking off with the Ratanui offering at Matawhero. Mel and Nicky Story are our partners with Turiroa in Stern Gladiator 768 and they had a great sale clearing all bulls for an average of NZ $8060. The top price was $13000 for an outstanding Gladiator son.

It was then onto to the Williams and Dowding family’s Kaharau which was also an excellent sale, averaging $8100. The top price of NZ$52000 was paid for a bull by Kaharau Atlas. The next day it was Turihaua’s turn and they presented an expanded line up of 87 bulls. There were sons of most of the Turihaua sires including our favourite, Crumble as well as Texan, Foreman, Rex and Scrum. The highest price was $17000 for a bull by Black Emporer V78 which was sold to the Bayly family of Cricklewood.

The next day was the always exciting Gisborne Combined sale. There was a terrific line up of bulls including a great line of sons of our Kaharau Clarion 844 from Cricklewood. The winner of the Wonder Cup was lot 2 Tangihau G21 who was purchased by Ric Orr of Red Oak for $20000 but the highest price went to a Clarion son, guaranteed to power up any program. He was purchased by Kaharau for $65000.

Sadly we had to miss our friends, the Powdrell’s sale at Turiroa but their Gladiator sons sold for an average of $6616.

It was a very pleasing endorsement of our genetic investments over the last few years and invaluable to see how these sires’s progeny are performing in other herds.