A top Welsh breeder and trialist was again top dog on price at £12,200 during the CCM Skipton Auction Mart’s online winter sale of working sheep dogs.
Kevin Evans, of Llwynfedwen, Brecon, led the way at the 29 November sale with his fully broken 17-month-old black and white bitch, Cefneithin Gyp.
A smooth-coated, prick-eared daughter of his own Hendre Sam, Gyp is a Welsh Nursery Champion and multiple Open trials trials winner.
She is line bred to Kevin’s dual European Nursery and Royal Welsh champion, Tanhill Glen.
Gyp’s dam is Cefneithin Jet, from fellow North Wales dog trainer Sion Jones, who runs Cefn Eithin Sheep Dogs in Corwen.
She is herself a daughter of Clwyd Bob, from another Welsh trailing legend, Ceredigion’s Dewi Jenkins.
The solid nursery prospect was claimed by Levi Joensen, of Klaksvik on Bordoy, the northernmost Faroe Island some 200 miles north-northwest of Scotland.
It’s the second time the Faroese handler has made an online Skipton acquisition from Kevin Evans, also going to a very similar £12,100 in 2020 for a 19-month-old bitch, Barcroft Sophie.
Both dogs have made a major impact on selling prices at Skipton in recent years.
Kevin also sold a brace of red, white and tan unbroken youngsters just ten-weeks-old, a dog and a bitch from the same litter and by another of his stud dogs, Midderry Frank, an Open trials winner. Regally named, King made £1,800 and Queen £1,600.
The former goes to Ballymena in Northern Ireland to join John Maybin, the latter even further across the seas to Viken in Norway with online purchaser Sjur Søndrål.
Next best at £5,600 was Moss, a part-broken 12-month-old black and white dog from David Wood, of Derwent, near Bamford in the Derbyshire Peak District's Hope Valley, bred out of his own Polly, who finished runner-up in the 2019 English National.
Exhibiting plenty of natural power and ready to bring on further, Moss heads north of the border to Ewen Macmillan, of Lurg, near Fintry in Stirlingshire, a noted Highland cattle and Scottish Blackface sheep aficionado.
David Wood also claimed top price of £2,050 in the unbroken section with his black and white Ben, a six-month-old son of Kemi Bert, this, too, from Kevin Evans and another well-bred son of the prolific Tanhill Glen.
Skipton working sheep dog sales are due to return on 23 February 2024.
