Report for Dorset's website on May Fair 2016: Leading the day’s prices was the September 2015 born Poll ram lamb Huish Exhilarate from David Rossiter. Its sire Downkillybegs Unique, a double copy Myomax ram, has passed one copy of the double muscling gene to his son which is out of a home-bred ewe from the 520 ewe Huish flock.

Mr Rossiter is an advocate of using DNA markers which he believes will become increasingly important for future step breeding, selecting not only for health and performance, but the early lambing capabilities which the Dorset is renowned for.

Purchasing the leading priced ram was father and son Jim and Joe Dufosee for their 400-ewe Blackhill flock which is run on an organic system alongside 200 Red Ruby Devon suckler cows, run on an organic system on Salisbury Plain. They paid the top price of 3,100gns at the 2015 May Fair for Riverview Wasabi from Northern Ireland breeders Sharon and Trevor Knox.

“Joe and I select the 10 rams we like before the pre-sale show,” said Jim, who farms with his son at Farnicombe Farm, Upton Scudamore, Warminster, Wiltshire. “David’s ram had good figures, which is important to us.

“He is also a scopey ram as well as being correct and he has the Myomax gene breeding through Ballytaggart Puma,” added Jim, who said the ram would be out to work immediately after the sale.