In her first trip down under, international judge Rebekah Mast, US, was really impressed by the Brown Swiss shown, saying the class winners would all hold their own against cattle in the US and Switzerland.
“I wasn’t surprised because there are great breeders of Brown Swiss cattle in Australia, but it was impressive how they came out – there wasn’t any animal out there today that didn’t deserve to be,” Ms Mast said.
“Throughout the cow classes in particular, they all had beautiful udders.”
And it was the Govett family’s Tandara Brown Swiss cattle that impressed her the most – they won best udder (with Tandara Etvei Heidi 217, reserve junior champion (with Tandara Jublend Wabash), reserve intermediate champion (with Tandara Zaster Lola) and champion cow and grand champion (with Tandara Jolt Sarajevo 55).
In fact, when Ms Mast pulled three cattle out to award the grand champion broad ribbon, all were from the Govett family’s stables.
It would come as no surprise that Tandara Brown Swiss went on to be named premier breeder and exhibitor. Ben Govett was ecstatic with the results, and put it down to a lot of hard work over the months of preparation by both family and a wide group of helpers.
The family has been breeding Brown Swiss for more than 30 years, and Ben said the animals they exhibited today were a result of 20 years of their own breeding.
