Calderdale’s Charlie Leach bags another CCM Skipton young handlers prime lambs crown

Charlie is celebrating being supreme champion for the second time at Skipton Auction Mart’s annual young handlers’ showcase.

For Charlie, whose proud parents Adrian and Kathryn Leach farm at Owlers Farm in Hebden Bridge, was not only repeating his 2021 young handlers title win at Skipton but also following up on his young handlers championship success at the same venue’s high profile annual Christmas primestock show day last November.

The latest show victor for the Old Town Primary School pupil was an April-born pure Beltex gimmer lamb by one of his parents’ tups out of Charlie’s own home-bred ewe.

Tapped out first as 1st prize winner in the 10-16 years show class, then overall supreme champion by Embsay show judge Annabel Mason, the 41kg frontrunner went on to sell for £150 to ringside regular Andrew Atkinson, Felliscliffe.

After finishing runner-up in the intermediates class the previous two years, Calderdale’s Chrissie Lund, now 17, stepped up to compete in the 17-26 years senior class, winning it with a home-bred 39kg Beltex-x gimmer lamb sold for £135.

Chrissie now works full-time on the family farm in Walshaw run by her parents Richard and Emma, and grandparents Brian and Linda Lund – they, too, are familiar faces at Skipton – and she is currently undertaking an agricultural apprenticeship course at Craven College’s auction mart campus.