Page 28 - British Blue Yearbook 2023

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Announced as usual at the January Carlisle, Craig’s achievement is down not least to his work with the Patersons’ Auchenlay herd at Dunblane where for some seven years he has helped preparing and showing their Blues at shows and sales in Scotland, England and Wales.
Craig, 26, spends most of his time on his own family’s farm at Kinross, a 300 acre arable farm with a 60-strong spring calving suckler herd and also operating a silage contracting service.
Says Craig: “I have been used to preparing show cattle as we like to do a bit of showing with our cross-bred commercials but it was initially as an extra hand at lambing time that I began helping the Patersons. They then asked if I could help with the cattle and I was happy to do that and when I am not busy at home, the Auchenlay herd gets first call on my services."
Kinnesswood is Craig’s own prefix in the British Blue Cattle Society and his sights are set on developing a herd of up to 10 cows and heifers. As it happens, one of the commercial cows at home is actually a pedigree Blue and registered in Craig’s name. It is one he bought as heifer from Emyr Wigley’s Old Stackyard herd long before the dispersal of that herd where, Craig admits, he would have liked to buy another.
“I had someone in place at the Shrewsbury sale to look at one or two for me and perhaps bid, as I could only watch on-line, but my choices went a little bit over my budget.
“We also have now have a second Blue bull at home, having previously just used the Limousin. We hadn’t really had any experience of Blue bulls in the commercial herd and it did raise a few eyebrows when some people heard
we had put the Blue bull over some heifers, but I have to say, they all calved without problem.”
However, Craig’s Old Stackyard cow was, at the time of writing, in-calf to his own young black bull which the Patersons had given him as guaranteed pregnancy inside a recipient in recognition of his work for them in 2019.
“I have already shown the bull successfully at local shows and my best result was reserve inter-breed at Fife when he was just 16 month old,” says Craig. But he was also champion at Stirling show, ironically against the Patersons.”
“However, 2019 had been a really good year for Auchenlay where we were in the winning group of five at the Royal Welsh with a bull and a heifer that also won the breed’s pairs class,” says Craig. “That bull was Auchenlay Nimrod and he was the show’s male champion as well and we then teamed him up with Kevin Watret’s female and breed champion Solway View Milly to win the inter-breed pairs class.
“In winning the male championship, Nimrod was repeating his success from the Royal Highland that year where he had also taken the overall reserve title. He was also breed champion at the Perth and West Fife shows. He is a Sandyvale Jagerbomb son out of Auchenlay Hope and the following year, went on to make joint top price of 10,000gns at Carlisle.”
Needless to say, Craig will be at this year’s sales with cheque book in hand on the hunt for cows or heifers which catch his eye. In 2024 however, he will have another priority when in May he will marry fiancée Charlotte and although her surname is Paterson, Craig says she is only a distant relative of “the” Patersons -- and is more into sheep than cattle !.
CRAIG DRYSDALE WINNER OF THE INGLEWOOD EDGE TROPHY FOR THE YOUNG STOCKPERSON OF THE YEAR
Kinross young farmer and British Blue enthusiast Craig Drysdale is the latest winner of the Inglewood Edge Trophy for the breed society’s Young Stockperson of the Year.