The Morris family's Morrisvale Limousin stud, Narrikup, made the trip across the Nullarbor to the Sydney Royal Easter Show last month with both a team of stud cattle and two steers and one of their steers came up trumps.
Winning the carcase competition for the family in one of Australia's biggest steer shows was a purebred Limousin steer.
After initially finishing seventh on the hoof in its middleweight class, which attracted 34 entries, the 11-month-old, went on to be sashed the champion open middleweight purebred carcase on the hook and received a gold medal.
The Sydney Royal Medal System is utilised in the carcase section of the Sydney Royal Purebred Steer and Carcase Competition to better recognise those carcases that meet the appropriate score levels to qualify for a bronze, silver or gold medal.
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In the carcase competition the 448 kilogram steer, which had been on feed for 95 days, finished on a score of 92.28 out of 100 points.
It scored 20 out of 20 for market specification, as well as 37.24 out of 40 for saleable meat yield and 35.04 out of 40 for eating quality.
It had a carcase weight of 282kg, a dressing percentage of 62.95 per cent, 6mm rib fat, 9mm P8 fat, 94cm2 eye muscle area, 300 Meat Standard's Australia (MSA) marbling score and a 56.07 MSA index.
Stud principal James Morris said their steer at 11 months old would have been one of the youngest in the competition.
"We have been told that this could possibly be the first time a WA-bred animal has won a champion carcase competition at Sydney show, we are very proud of this achievement," Mr Morris said.
"We have always strived to be a commercially orientated stud first, breeding cattle that perform where it matters and that put more dollars into our commercial clients' pockets and the stud as well.
"We keep proving this each year with either our genetics or our clients performing well in other competitions like the Harvey Beef Gate 2 Plate Challenge plus we have sold bulls to studs across Australia."
Mr Morris said the steer was out of a deregistered stud cow.
"Each year we deregister approximately eight to 10 stud cows to bring in the new generation heifers," he said.
"The deregistered cows go into our commercial herd and are joined back to a Limousin bull.
"We do this as we know there are cows that breed well, have plenty of milk and produce calves with softness and muscle that perform off grass as vealers or if needed can be finished on grain."
The steer was sired by Morrisvale Poseidon, which is by Morrisvale Lumberjack.
Mr Morris said Lumberjack had numerous sons standing as sires at stud in Australia and was still the only Limousin bull to be exported to three countries (South Africa, Canada and New Zealand), where it is breeding extremely well.
"We are now seeing Canadian sires come back to Australia with his pedigree in the background," Mr Morris said.
