WHILE NOT showing her own cows at this year’s International Dairy Week, Kyabram’s Sarah Lloyd is still hoping to make a big impact.
Sarah will continue her relationship with Tatura’s Erin and Andrew Cullen, who she works with every show, by showing five of their cows in the handlers, youth and cattle age classes.
Her spirits are high leading up to the January event.
“I’m not really sure how we’ll go,” she said.
“Hopefully, we’ll go pretty good. I’m pretty confident about them (her chances).”
With IDW meaning a lot to the Lloyds, after the death of Sarah’s father Darren at the 2017 event, Sarah enjoys spending time with the dairy community that turns up each and every year.
“I keep going back because we are all there for each other, we all support each other, everyone’s there always helping,” she said.
“I enjoy meeting new people and learning about all the different things about cows.”
Sarah’s mother Genevieve said it was “another extended family”.
“They all have the same passions as what Sarah has,” she said.
Sarah said the reason for going back more recently was to honour her father.
“We do dairy week, just for him now,” she said.
“We know that he’s there with us — he would be really proud of the kids,” Genevieve said.
In preparation for the event, Sarah will help the Cullens get the cows ready.
“I’ll go to Erin’s as much as I can to help her get them ready, do some clipping, leading, get them real comfortable and feed is really important for their health and washing them,” she said.
Sarah is no stranger to big shows as she unexpectedly had success at the 2018 Royal Melbourne Show.
“I got there and wasn’t planning on leading and tried just watching because I love to watch to learn new things,” she said.
“Then handlers were coming up and I had a few people harass me. Erin came over and was telling me I had no choice but to go out there.
“I got out there, Simone (Ross) gave me some whites and I went and led and came first in my age then went onto the overall and came second there.
“It went pretty good for not actually being there (to lead).”