Interest from both pedigree and commercial buyers drove the trade at the Limousin sale held by McCartneys Auctioneers at Brecon on Saturday, May 11.

With a top price of 11,000gns, both the bulls sold and average were up on the year with 21 bulls going off to new homes and the average increasing by £324 to £5895.

Lot 38 Woodmarsh Tycoon was the top priced bull, and a flurry of bids saw him knocked down at 11,000gns to his new owner Wilodge Limousin, Shifnal, Shropshire. Bought forward for sale by breeders M and JC Gould, Shrewsbury, Shropshire, the November 2022-born Tycoon has an impressive pedigree and figures to match. Sired by the 50,000gns Carlisle supreme champion Wilodge Cerberus, and out of the 25,000gns Wilodge Onhigh, who goes back to Powerful Irish, this shapely bull has a myostatin pairing of F94L/Q204 with a top 1 per cent muscle depth score, and growth, milk and beef value EBV’s in the top 10 per cent of the national herd.

Next in the trade stakes at 8,000gns, was the pre-sale show senior and reserve overall champion Lot 8 Nealford Tinker, from JH Neale and Son, Launceston, Cornwall. An April 2022-born bull, and another with myostatin of F94L/Q204, he has a retail value of LM46 placing him in the top 10 per cent of the breed. Bred out of the 16,000gns Ampertiane Inferno sired-Nealford Orlana, he is by stock bull and 17,000gns Loosebeare Nelson, who has bred more than 100 sons and daughters into the Nealford herd since his purchase in May 2018. He goes on to work for Messrs WI and J Adams, of the Tircanol herd in Swansea. 

Tapping him out as the senior champion was the pre-sale judge Mark Davies, Pembrokeshire, who along with his wife Catherine and daughters Caryl, Sara and Lowri, established their Glencross herd in 2009. Following the purchases of their foundation female blood lines, the herd now has now increased to 70 breeding cows. Their main aim is to produce quality store cattle which they sell at 10 months old, as well as maternal females to retain for the future of their herd.

Three bulls came under the gavel at 7,500gns, two of them from the Dyfri stable of DG and MJ Edwards. First up and catching the eye of R Lewis, was Lot 6 Dyfri Tonto. A 24 month-old with French breeding on the sire side, he is by the herds stock bull Fenomen and out of Dyfri Lola, a daughter of the 35,000gns Plumtree Deus. With a top 1 per cent beef value of LM52, he also features in the top 1 per cent for fat depth and milk, the top 10 per cent for growth and is a double F94L carrier.

The other of the Edwards family bulls to achieve 7,500gns was Lot 20 Dyfri Tutor, a July 2022-born bull by the same sire as Tonto and his dam is again a Plumtree Deus daughter, this time Dyfri Jacoba. Another with standout figures, this F94L/F94L myostatin carrier registers within the top 1 per cent of the breed for growth, 200 day milk and scrotal circumference and the top 10 per cent for fat depth and beef value. The top bidders on Tutor were EH Hamer and Son, Llangorse.

A small but quality consignment of heifers were forward at the sale, with nine selling to average £2875. The highest bid of 4,000gns came for the female champion from Mary Cormack, Stoke Prior, Herefordshire.