Moongool’s Ivan Price with the inter-breed champion of the Ekka ‘Victory’. Photo: Ekka Facebook

SURAT’s Moongool Charolais has just completed another successful trip to Brisbane for the Ekka, with the company’s bull, Victory, living up to his name being crowned the inter-breed champion in front of crowds at the weekend.

The Price family have been coming to the Ekka since 1990, showing cattle in the arena and last year making a successful entrance into the data-driven paddock to palate competition – winning the overall 70-day trade section. The success was continued this year with a third in the 120-day (HGP-free) section.

Before the ribbons started to pile up on their stand this year, Moongool and Keddstock principal Ivan Price sat down with The Week in Beef podcast to talk about why the family keeps coming back to Brisbane year-after-year.

“Things have changed a lot, all for the better, the facilities now are wonderful. I don’t think you will get a better place to house cattle in,” Mr Price said.

“It is a real credit to the RNA, when you bring cattle out here in in the main ring where we are sitting now, it is probably the most beautiful backdrop that you will find at any show in Australia. The lawn is always in immaculate condition with all the traffic it gets over it and to keep the heritage here is amazing.”

The best judges are in the grandstand

In a world of genetic indicators and objective data, Mr Price was asked if he thought a show ribbon was still a good marketing tool for stud breeders. He said while ribbons were nice, the biggest benefit was putting the animals on display.

“The best judges are the ones on the outside of the ring looking on. It is a good place for people to come and look at the animals that are going to be sold in the next couple of months in the spring bull sales,” he said.

“Obviously not all the bulls are going to be here, but producers can get a bit of an idea what each stud has.

“I think we can’t lose shows, we have all these other ways of looking at animals but looking at them in the flesh I think is still the best way to look at them.”

While the show arena was being used to market the seedstock, Mr Price last year started entering cattle into the data-driven paddock-to-palate competition to benchmark the company’s commercial herd.

The Price family entered three pens into each category of the competition (except Wagyu), with some Charbray/Charolais pens, some Angus/Charolais pens and a purebred Charolais pen.

One of the Charolais cross pens came third in the 120-day export (HGP-free) category.

Interacting with the public

Bringing cattle to the show means the Moongool team have their animals on display for the public in the opening week of the show – along with several other studs that have been competing for a similar length of time.

“You look at some people and think ‘I’ve seen you before somewhere, but it was probably 20 years ago when they were walking around the cattle sheds’.

“I enjoy talking to the public of Brisbane. We have to educate them a little bit on how it all works, where beef comes from, how it’s produced and how it’s good for you. At the end of the day, we need someone consuming what we are breeding.

Mr Price said he has been asked all manner of questions over the years.

“Mostly they are trying to work out which is a male and which female and you can point that out quite pretty quickly,” he said.

“You start from the bottom and they learn pretty quickly. We are fortunate enough that our cattle are white and they are always an attraction.”

Opening the gates to international Charolais breeders

Moongool winning the inter-breed bull and an Inverell-based Charolais Stud called 4-Ways winning the inter-breed female was in keeping with a big theme of this year’s Ekka.

Charolais breeders from across the world were in the ring as part of tour through Australia for World Charolais Congress. Charolais was the feature breed of this year’s show, posting 233 entries overall which is the largest in a long time.

Moongool has been a big part of the congress, bringing 22 entries to the show and later this week hosting the group at its Surat property. Mr Price said they had gone to a lot effort for the guests.

“We have made quite a large entertainment area where we have turned a few old silos that some people would probably pushed down or buried or scrap metaled and turned them into a couple of bars and big fire pit area that overlooks all the cattle.

“We have had someone make a sculpture of a bull that really typifies the phenotype of what I feel a charolais bull should look like. For anyone into sculptures and art, it is a very good piece.”