Harry Hiscock; exhibitors Nicole, Rupert, George, Angus and Carl Baldry; judge David Bondfield.
A family with an Illabo Farm have just seen years of passion, sweat and tears pay off in a historic win when their cattle breed won the Supreme Junior Champion Interbreed Bull at the 2026 Sydney Royal Easter Show.
The show ring, judged by Bonfield Agriculture principal David Bondfield, found the Baldry family’s Tennysonvale Verge stud from its Illabo stable as the winner. This was the first Fleckvieh to win in its category.
The Verge was a 19-month-old, weighing 854 kgs with an eye muscle area of 130cm2, P8 fat of 9mm, and rib fat of 8mm.
Carl Baldry spoke to the Junee Independent about the massive win.
“We’ve pretty much been showing there since 1994, and we’ve never won the breed. We’ve also never won interbreed, so it was over 30 years we’ve been showing on and off at the Sydney Show,” he said.
“We were shocked. It was over two days that we got judged. Our breed judging was on the Saturday, and then the interbreed, which is against all the other breeds, was on Sunday. It was a little bit of a shock. We had a bit of crowd support in the interbreed, which was good. It was very surreal.”
Carl’s pop and dad started Tennysonvale Simmental Fleckvieh in 1988, and said they’ve been breeding stud Simmentals for many years.
“There are about 160 breeders across our three farms,” he said.
“We have our on-farm sale once a year, which is in May, and then we also are involved in a sale in Queensland, which is in August. We are seedstock producers.”
Carl said they will have approximately 70 in this year’s sale (to occur next month) with another 14-15 in the Eidsvold sale.
“The main farm is at Illabo,” he said.
“We’ve got another block of land up near West Wyalong. My pop has 40 acres on the outskirts of Sydney. I love the Show. He’s encouraged that a lot, and it was nice to see him get a win with us. The bull was born up there, and then when he was about eight months old, he came down here, and we’ve had him ever since.”
Carl works in Junee as an accountant and his work at the farm is what he has called his “second-time job”.
“The Royal Easter Show was very good. It was pretty busy actually this year; it seems to be that a lot of people were there. It was a lot busier than normal. It’s a long week, though. You’re there for pretty much eight days non-stop, looking after cattle. You get to go to bed at 11:00pm and get up at 4:30am,” he said.
“We’re pretty happy with the win. Hopefully, he sells all right next month in the sale. We’ve still got him for sale next month in our sale, so it’ll be good to see how he goes there. That will be on the 29th of May.”
– Jack Murray
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