The Courier & Advertiser (Perth and Perthshire Edition)
Poignant supreme championship win for Fordelhill team at Fife foal show
clydesdales: Victory a fitting tribute to breed hero, the late Davy Greenhill
Emotions ran high at the 99th anniversary North of Fife Foal Show when the Fordelhill prefix prevailed to secure a bittersweet supreme championship victory.
In a fitting tribute to show stalwart and local Clydesdale breed hero Davy Greenhill, who passed away only weeks previously, the Fordelhill team, led by son Scott and grandson William, swept the board with the family’s home-bred mare Fordelhill Jubilee Ruby.
Now three years old, this daughter of Collessie Whinhill President was homebred at Leuchars Lodge out of another of Davy’s successful show mares Fordelhill Lady Margaret.
Unanimous in their decision to initially draw Ruby forward as senior champion and then as the best horse in the show, judges Audrey Lamb, of Fullwood Farm, Carluke, and Sandy Aitken, of Newton Cottage, Memus, praised the mare as “outstanding”.
“She was just beautifully turned out and she is in such great condition,” they said.
Ruby came to the show, held for the second year at Nisbetfield Farm, Letham, in Fife, having won the senior championship and reserve supreme at Lanark Foal Show the previous week.
Only lightly shown over recent years, Ruby also stood senior champion at Cupar foal show last season, was reserve champion at Angus Show during the summer of last year and won at Perth as a yearling.
“Dad first lifted the senior championship at Cupar 34 years ago, but he had to wait until 1990, with his black home-bred filly Fordelhill Flower of Scotland, before he won his first overall trophy here,” Scott said.
“It is our local foal show and it meant an awful lot to him, so there was certainly a tear in my eye when Ruby went all the way for him this year.”
Scott, who will take the Fordelhill prefix forward for years to come, certainly has some successful footsteps to follow at future Cupar foal contests.
Indeed Davy, who supported the show almost every year throughout his heavy horse career and who stood for some years as event chairman, had lifted the senior championship 15 times previously, returning home to Leuchars with the Blair Brothers Perpetual Trophy for the best horse in the show on six separate occasions.
Topping the foal championship line-up to stand as reserve show supreme was an international filly, Herkules First Lady, produced and shown by Angus property developer John Anderson, of Drummygar Mains, Carmyllie.
Bred in Sweden by Christer and Michelle Paulsson, of the Herkules Stud, this senior filly foal is the produce of Woodhouse Lucky Strike and Shire Horse of the Year finalist Sparklands Katherine.
Praising the filly for having age and therefore size in her favour, Ms Lamb and Mr Aitken said she really stood out for “presence” and her “great overall finish”.
Since arriving in Scotland, First Lady has won foal championships on three of her four show outings.
She also progressed to top the supreme horse line-up at Lanark.
Meanwhile, falling shy of an overall podium finish, but taking the reserve senior title was Agnes Jackson’s yearling filly Boat Lady Vanessa, which was home-bred at Thankerton, Biggar. This daughter of Dillars Top Gun was previously second at Lanark this season.
Shadowing Herkules First Lady from pillar to post, the reserve foal rosette was awarded to the second placed senior filly, Muirton Melba, from the Clark Family, of Madderty. This was only her second show outing for 2015 – at Lanark she took home a third placing.