British Simmental Review 2023

SALES
Carlisle May
10,000gns Overhill House
Simmental bull is the
‘Real’ McCoy At Carlisle!
• Record Simmental average at
Carlisle of £6,519
• 100% clearance rate with all 12
bulls sold
• Eight bulls make 6,000gns and
more
• Midhope lead the pedigree
females at 3,800gns
• Auchorachan top the
Simmental High Health bulling
heifer sale at £3,800
• Chestermann Reduction Sale
tops at 3,300gns
• Across the sections on the day
the Simmental sale grossed
£180,755
Overhill House McCoy 10,000gns.
Richard McCulloch, Overhill House, Armadale, West Lothian led a terrific Simmental
bull sale at Harrison & Hetherington’s Borderway Mart when he took the
10,000gns sale top price with Overhill House McCoy at the breed’s May Carlisle
Sale on Saturday, 13 th May.
A strong demand from a packed ring side saw a 100% clearance of the 12 bulls forward
and a centre record average at this May fixture of £6,519. Eight bulls made 6,000gns
and more with top price bulls selling to Orkney, Aberdeen, Northumberland, Hawick,
Derbyshire, and Newton Stewart. A busy Simmental day saw pedigree females sell to
3,900gns, whilst the newly introduced sale of Simmental X High Health heifers saw a
top price of £3,800 and 33 average £1,790.
Earlier in the day, the December 2021 born Overhill House McCoy had been placed as
the Supreme Champion in the pre-sale show of bulls by the judge Harry Wood of the
noted Popes herd, Dutton, Lancashire. Come sale time Overhill House McCoy raced
to 10,000gns before being knocked down to prolific Simmental bull buyer Liam Muir,
Stromness, Orkney. Mr Muir was purchasing the bull for clients Ronnie & Gladys Brown,
Newhall, Stromness for their 60-cow suckler herd. Commenting after the sale Mr Muir
said: “This is just a good Simmental bull. He has width, plenty of length, great style, and
is the dark red colour I was also looking for.”
The Supreme Championship and sale top price made it a double for the Overhill
House herd who achieved the same feat at the recent Stirling Simmental Sale with the
16,000gns all-breeds top priced Overhill House Neil. Overhill House McCoy is by the
24,000gns Islavale Heston, the same sire as the herd’s Stirling topper, and is out of
Islavale Caitlin a heifer bought privately as a yearling from the Islavale herd.
In all, eight bulls made 6,000gns or more. Simmental bulls with polled genetics have
increasingly been in demand and the second top price at Carlisle was the 8,000gns
paid for the heterozygous polled Auchorachan Monarch ET 21 (P), from D&R Durno
132 | www.britishsimmental.co.uk