Red Cactus Red Poll stud principal Ross Draper marks 40 years

The Red Cactus Red Poll principal won the supreme title with his October 2022-drop bull.

"I should be going alright because it's about 40 years since I started showing here," Mr Draper said.

"We had six animals and a few young exhibitors and they all did really well."

Mr Draper runs about 80 breeders on his property and sells between four and five bulls a year.

"I started showing in 1982 and it is a bit of a tiring experience now, but since I was a little kid, I wanted to go to shows and that's why I got into stud cattle," he said.

"From there, I was president of the breed society twice and have been on the board for a long time, too long some people say but we're still going and very interested."

He said the popularity of the breed was on an upwards trajectory, especially in certain saleyards.

"We're seeing more and more Red Polls in the saleyards, especially around Mortlake," Mr Draper said.

"We've seen some good runs of Red Polls in the last four of five store sales, along with a breeder or two who send cattle into the Pakenham saleyard."

The award-winning bull won the supreme Red Poll exhibit in April at the Sydney Royal Show.

"We breed cattle mostly for a commercial purpose, because they have to make it in the commercial world to be any good in the stud sector," Mr Draper said.

"We plan to use this bull pretty extensively and don't have any plans to sell him at this stage.

Red Poll judge Ruby Canning, Mavstar Simmentals, Myamyn, said it was an honour to judge cattle at the Melbourne Royal Show.

"I really admired my supreme champion exhibit, my senior bull, because he was an animal who stood out to me throughout the day because of his power and dimension," she said.

"I believe he was the most well put together animal I had out there and hence why I awarded him the supreme.

"Overall, it was great to see the number of exhibits we had."

Ms Canning applauded the studs who took time to showcase cattle in the show.

"Our markets are a little bit harder at the moment and the climate is affecting everyone so it was great to see a really good group of exhibits out there today," she said.

"What stood out to me was the amount of carcase these animals had, especially the senior bull.

"We need to look at breeds from a functional point of view and a red meat industry point of view and that was something I was looking at from my bulls."