IAN and Julie Mueller's Glenbrook Illawarras stud at Murray Bridge continued its stellar run this season by showing the overall champion cow in the South Australian Illawarra On-Farm Challenge held late last year.
Glenbrook Venus 19 – supreme champion cow at last year's Royal Adelaide Show – was overall champion after placing first in the five-year-old class in the competition.
Judge David Kerber, Goldwyn Holsteins, Charleston, said Venus 19 was one of the most recognised cows in the country now because of her performance at Royal Adelaide last year,
"I saw a little bit of her just a couple of months after Adelaide and she was looking as good, if not better, than she was at the Royal," he said.
"She's proving to be one of the best Illawarras in the country."
"She's got extreme dairy character," he said. "She has a very well-attached udder and she looks like she is a cow that would produce a lot of milk."
Mr Mueller was happy to see Venus 19 continue her good form after the Royal.
But the cow has proved to be more than just a looker as she holds the national milk and protein record for a senior yearling cow.
"Venus is a family we bought in about 1989 and since then it has produced another champion cow in Adelaide, some intermediate champions and now Venus 19," Mr Mueller said.
"When you add it all up it's been a very successful family for us and production has been consistently good."
The Muellers, who are milking about 330 cows, produced two more class winners in the competition.
Glenbrook Envy 3 – supreme intermediate champion cow at last year's Royal – won the three-year-old class ahead of another Mueller cow Glenbrook Thorn 6, and Braelee BB Lass from the Kuhl family at Tarpeena.
Glenbrook Topsy 9 won the mature cow class ahead of Cluain 2279 Princess, an Australian Red from Graeme Hamilton, Hamilton's Run, Mount Gambier, and Braelee MK Rosette.
*Full report in Stock Journal, January 24 issue, 2013.