Border Leicester stalwart Heather Stoney has been a familiar face at Victoria's big sheep shows for many years and is passionate about promoting the breed's maternal attributes to the prime lamb industry.
Mrs Stoney and her husband Murray have been breeding Border Leicesters under the Ellingerrin stud banner for more than 40 years and are thrilled they will finally get the opportunity to showcase the breed at this year's Australian Sheep & Wool Show.
They are planning to bring a team of eight rams and ewes for the feature breed event.
"After two years of cancellations, it will be nice to see the Border Leicesters finally being the feature breed," Mrs Stoney said.
"The show is such a great social outlet, you catch up with people you only see once a year.
"We have made some great friends that we would never have met otherwise, that's probably why I go more than the sheep side of it."
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The Stoney family purchased the property Ellingerrin at Inverleigh in 1970 and established their Border Leicester stud five years later with 75 ewes and lambs from the Morocco stud, Meredith.
"We had been buying flock rams from Mr Bird's Morocco stud and one year Murray went over and Mr Bird said he was getting too old to run his Border Leicester stud," Mrs Stoney said.
"Even in those days Border Leicesters were known for their crossing ability and we were in a big Merino area and breeding first-cross ewes.
"We thought the stud would complement our business and there was demand for flock rams within the district."
The foundation ewes were Campaspe bloodlines and since then the Stoney family have used genetics from The Oaks and Plymouth studs and more recently, Geraldine, Jackson Farming and Baringa.
"Early on, ease of lambing was important because our rams were going over smaller-framed fine wool Merino ewes," Mrs Stoney said.
"As time has gone by and sheep have got larger, we have concentrated on breeding a structurally-correct sheep with quality maternal and carcase traits.
"We also still place plenty of emphasis on wool quality; we need a nice, stylish fleece with a long staple and a fair bit of body in it."
Their son Andrew has now taken over the reins at Inverleigh, while the Stoneys have downsized to a farm at Modewarre, where they currently run 200 stud Border Leicester ewes and opportunity trade cattle.
A driving force behind the Border Leicester breed in Australia, Mrs Stoney has been the Victorian Border Leicester Association president for many years and is the current sheep superintendent of the Royal Geelong Show.
She has also been on the Australian Stud Sheep Breeders Association and Melbourne Royal Show committees and judged sheep all over Australia.
But Mrs Stoney's proudest moment has been her involvement in getting the multi-vendor Horsham Border Leicester Show and Sale up and running in 1992.
"Through the years the sale has been a tremendous benefit to the Border Leicester industry," she said.
"I think a lot of rams and genetics have been sold there that otherwise would have been lost.
"Although it has ceased now due to the growth of on-property sales, there have been a lot of successful stud sires to come out of Horsham."
Ellingerrin sells about 120 rams privately each year.