The appearance of 62 animals in the beef classes at next week's Hawke's Bay Show is being welcomed as a sign of a stock classes revival.
Such a resurgence is needed for the Hawke's Bay A and P Society to make a success of the Royal Show it will be running next year, says Central Hawke's Bay simmental studmaster Tony Thompson.
A multiple Meat and Wool Cups winner but sometimes the only entrant, Mr Thompson, of Glenanthony Simmentals, will, along with fellow breeder Sue Wylie, have 25 entries from the breed at the 151st anniversary show next week in Hastings.
The 18 adult cattle in the troupe include Meat and Wool Cup contenders Glenanthony Y-Arta and Glenanthony Yale, the latter having been beaten by Dannevirke farmer Simon Collin's Charolais bull Rauriki Beaujolais in the Meat and Wool Cup last year.
Later Yale, or "Yogi Bear" as he's known at the stud, turned the tables in the All Breeds, and then in Rauriki Beaujolais' absence won the Meat and Wool Cup at the Royal Show in Feilding.