THE world's best Poll Hereford cow may be grazing the pastures north of Holbrook, NSW.
On February 2, the "Miss World" Hereford competition will be judged at Fort Worth in Texas, and Kanimbla Poll Herefords will fly the flag for the Australasia/Africa region.
A victory in the competition would not only be an Australian first, but would also cap off a year that will go down in the memory books at Kanimbla – much of which has been tied to the cow they will compete with.
Kanimbla Centrefold G58 was earmarked from a young age for her show potential, but at times her ear tag has carried more than her stud identification number.
In the lead up the Sydney Royal Easter Show the cow's tag read 'will you marry me' – a clever (and successful) proposal by then-stud manager James McWilliam to partner Belinda Muller.
This was part of a dream run for Centrefold on the show circuit, who won the prestigious champion Poll Hereford female title at Sydney soon after the proposal in April last year.
The cow then went on to be crowned "Miss Asia/Africa 2014" – a Poll Hereford competition judged on photos and video of champions from New Zealand, Pakistan, Kazakhstan, Russia, Turkey, South Africa, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Kenya and Uganda.
And the good fortune continued.
"From Sydney we went on to our on-property sale in September, and it was a very positive sale, and then we sold our first bull to Canada," stud co-principal Mike Todd said.
"We also sold six other bulls to some of the best studs in the country."
Finally the year culminated with Mr McWilliam and Ms Muller becoming co-owners of the business.
"It was just a really good year for all of us here at Kanimbla," Mr Todd said.
Next Monday the Kanimbla team will wait nervously as four judges in Texas plus social media users deliberate over multimedia of the four finalists in the Hereford Miss World competition.
Her competitors will be the champions from North America, South America and Europe.