Livestock takes Chad into new territory

The childhood nickname was assigned by his parents, allegedly because they couldn't "turn him off" - and given that as a little fellow he was always on the go, the name stuck.

And according to Moora agent Scott McCuish, the Elders' Moora and Midland territory livestock manager still lives up to the nickname.

"I was doing some stock work with him the other day and towards the end of it, the backs of my legs were aching from climbing up and down the rails all day, but he was still diving over the top," Mr McCuish said.

He also lived up to his nickname at the IGA Perth Royal Show in 2014, when steers were being brought to a yard for the trade sale and one made a break for it.

The 500 kilogram beast scrambled over the top rail, trotted out a gate into the public area and bolted through sideshow alley.

Along the way it knocked over Primaries of WA's representative at Muchea Livestock Centre Hayley Goad, trampled an empty toddler's pusher and sent the show crowd scattering.

Mr Golding joined a gaggle of stock agents and handlers giving chase, catching up with the steer in the front garden of a nearby house where it paused then ran at Mr Golding in a final bid for freedom.

Ever ready, Mr Golding jumped on its neck and hung on until others could grab the steer and get a rope on it.

"It just ran at me and I grabbed it around the neck," Mr Golding modestly recalled last Friday, as if it was a mundane occurrence.

"It was a fairly big animal, it had been fed up on grain," he said as the only admission of the risk involved.

But the incident brought him to the attention of people in the cattle industry and made his name known to them, an important asset for a livestock agent.

It also reinforced a view already held by his Elders bosses that with his quick thinking, determination and willingness to tackle anything, he was destined for bigger things.

And that has come to pass.

In a few weeks Mr Golding will head to Broome, his new base as Elders' territory livestock sales manager for the Kimberley.

From this base, he will spend weeks at a time travelling across the Kimberley to the Northern Territory border visiting the vast pastoral stations that will be his clients.

His role will be to liaise with their managers on how many weaners they estimate they might have wandering between water points in the Kimberley scrub.

Then it will be a complex co-ordinating role to organise drafting, transport and a sale to follow on seamlessly from the client station's helicopter muster.

"It's a minimum of three days before you can get cattle to one of the depots up there," Mr Golding said, emphasising the need to be well organised.

He will be responsible for Elders' involvement in the live cattle trade, supplying cattle for export to Indonesia and Malaysia via Broome and Wyndham ports.

It will be his job to know how many cattle he can get his hands on and which stations they are on when an exporter, mainly International Livestock Export Pty Ltd, is looking to fill a ship due in port.

Most of the cattle he sells will be delivered to the Roebuck export depot or Broome common on forward contract, destined for overseas markets.

But increasingly some weaners will be trucked south.

"We bring them down at 200 kilos, put them on grass for the winter then into a feedlot for a minimum of 100 days before they are slaughtered,'' he said.

"It's just another marketing option for us."

Mr Golding has had a taste of his new role on two previous visits to Broome as a trainee.

"I did four months up there in 2014 and I was back there for three months again last year," he said.

"It's great country up there, I love it."

He admits there will be an age gap between himself and most of the pastoralists he will be dealing with.

He will get to know them personally because his job is not one that can be done from behind a desk in Broome.

His accommodation on the stations will range from "fairly rough" to "pretty good", so the swag will have a permanent place in the back of the ute.

He has already had a taste of the Top End's top end in accommodation on the iconic Fossil Downs station near Fitzroy Crossing.

"I've stayed in the big house," he said.

The Kimberly is almost like returning home for Mr Golding.

He was born and raised on a farm at Katherine, in the NT.

His family left 10 years ago and moved to a dairy farm near Busselton while he attended boarding school in Perth.

While he loves cattle, dairy farming was not for Mr Golding.

"I couldn't see as good a future in it as I'd have with Elders and you can't have much of a social life as a dairy farmer," he said.

His first job was with Elders as a casual employee at Boyanup saleyards and he took on a traineeship starting in the Bunbury region.

Apart from Broome and Moora-Midland, he has worked out of Elders' Geraldton and Carnarvon offices and completed six months in Victoria in mountain cattleman country.

"I was working at Bairnsdale and Omeo in Gippsland, selling weaners and involved in the annual mountain calf sales which are pretty famous," he said.

"It gave me an insight into different aspects of the livestock industry and working with Herefords over there.

"I enjoyed it, but I was there in the warmer months, I mightn't have enjoyed spending a winter there."

The offer of a position as Moora and Midland territory livestock manager brought him back to WA, and the offer of a position as the Kimberley territory manager will take him north to the country he loves.

He is still aiming higher and would like to be Elders' livestock manager, with a small property of his own where he can run a few cattle.

He doesn't have a favourite breed.

"You can't have favourites in the livestock industry, the ones that sell are my favourites," he said.