Kylie Rattray's address to attendees, that attended the 25 Year Cattle Handling Celebration gathering.

Distinguished guests, past and present cattle handlers, volunteers, and community members.

Thank you all for attending tonight’s celebration of this very special achievement – 25 years of the Scottsdale High School Cattle Handling program. Thank you also to those who attended the Open Day at the Stronach View campus today. It was great to see our 25^th  team of handlers demonstrating their skills and cattle.

Thank you to Ms Williams for her welcome tonight, and I would like to thank her for her overwhelming support of the cattle handling program, our students and our school farm.

Thank you to Mrs Deanna Scott for her recap of the first 10 years of the program and Mrs Bev Hanlon first Principal to support this program. Deanna was a leading light in this space and paved the way for our present program. I often remind our current Students just how lucky they are! When I started, we had a show box, a set of leather halters, bale string lead ropes and some golf clubs converted into show canes. And those white coats! Very impractical. There were no blowers, no clipping chutes, no clippers, no fancy stuff. Over the years, we have been able to build up our equipment through generous donations, winning prize money and hard work. The year we won the Grand Champion and the Reserve Grand Champion carcase at Sheffield, we bought our first cattle blower. This was a big deal.  Chris Hall, then very generously donated our trailer, the envy of all schools and Alan Willis did the modification. Thank you for your generosity.

In 2020, we were fortunate enough to receive funds to upgrade our cattle yards to their current format. Prior to that, the farm board had made many improvements, again with the funds available and Farm Board volunteer input. This included The Lance Hall practice arena, new toilets and changerooms. Many of our early handlers would remember the old arena, if you could call it that; a temporary electric fence tape down on the grass in front of the classroom. It was a challenge with newly broken in cattle to keep them contained, at the same time, keep your footing. What a huge improvement our facilities have undertaken in the last 25 years and all for the benefit of our students. Thank you to anyone who has given time to these projects.

The first show team I coordinated back in 2009 was a team of 3 angus heifers from Quarterway Angus Stud. I can’t imagine that now, having broken in and shown teams of up to 24 cattle. These days we only show by the truckload.

Mr Lance Hall of Quarterway Angus was the first stud to entrust us with his valuable livestock. Mr Hall would call into the farm whenever he knew cattle handling training was on, and you could see the students spirits lift by his presence in the yards. He would always have his wooden stick at the ready, to give a heifer a good talking to if it played up. I still recall my first year of showing, and just prior to the Launceston show I must have overdone the grain feeding and the cattle got the runs. All Lance said was “Jesus girl, you’ve given them the shits”.  We continued to show cattle for Quarterway up until around 2015 and thank the Hall family for their long-standing support of our program.

During my early years, our handlers were fortunate enough to be exposed to and show many different breeds from studs in the North East, including Dexter, Hereford, Galloway, Shorthorn, Santa Gertrudis, Murray Grey, Simmental, and who could forget the evil belted Galloway, Jessica, She became my show heifer – but only for 1 show!

Breaking in cattle for other breeders came with many challenges, you can imagine the shock for the animals when I would arrive at the farm and unload a bus load of students. There was one particular heifer that we only saw the once, as she jumped the yard fence, and headed west. We finally located her in George Street near Stoney’s after going via Northbourne. Needless to say, she was returned home. Deemed with an unsuitable temperament. However, each year we were able to turn out a beautiful well-trained team of cattle and handlers, with just a small few cattle that were returned to their breeder. 

In 2013, I was finally able to convince the Farm Board at the time that we should start our own Angus Stud. I still recall the meeting, where I tabled my proposal, and was faced with negativity, it’s too expensive, there will be too much paperwork and how long are you staying for? 10 years on and it’s probably safe to say it was a good move.

That year we purchased our first stud cow, Quarterway Ellenor, and boy was she a handful. We tried to break her in, but failed and turned her out to produce some lovely offspring for our stud. And there our stud had began, Stronach View, aptly named after Mt Stronach which provided the beautiful backdrop for our school farm.

However, it wasn’t all fair sailing, things never are. Ellenor’s first bull calf was born with an ugly big birth mark and then shortly after injured his hip. The next year, we bought another Quarterway female at their sale, Frances. She was in calf, so Trevor generously offered to calve her down at Quarterway. All good, she had a heifer calf. Three months later, she dropped dead from grass tetany, and her calf, Jazz, fended for herself.

Time went by, and we slowly built up the Stud herd, purchasing further foundation females from Quarterway and Richmond Hill angus over the years. We currently have 24 registered stud females and sell around a dozen bulls each year to commercial farmers from the stud.

The establishment of Stronach View Angus stud has been a pivotal point for our program and students. The cattle are born here on farm and grow up with the students around. The students get to know the cattle from the start and the cattle get to know the Students. It’s a win, win.

I think back to my early years, where we would break the cattle like we were at the rodeo. Thank goodness, this is not necessary anymore. I will often talk to our new handlers about my first experiences when I started in the cattle handling program. I would take notice of what Mrs Scott was up to and wonder why she spent so much time “playing” with cattle. What was the point?

In 2009, I inherited the cattle handling reins, or leads in this case, after Deanna retired. I’ll be honest, I wasn’t thrilled about the situation, but I accepted the challenge.  I can still remember to this day, the afternoon when Chris Hall passed me a lead rope with an Angus Cow on the end of it and said “Hold this”. I nearly died of fright.  

15 years on and I can’t imagine not doing it. My life is planned around the show season. I must pay tribute to the Late Mr Lance Hall, Chris Hall and Brian Medcraft for their mentoring early on in the program. Without your patience, expertise and support, I wouldn’t have developed the skills to continue on the program.

Cattle handling is not just big hats, flash boots and bling, it’s really hard work. You may have been fortunate enough to hear the ABC radio interview this week, where Adara and Ajana spoke.  They said, “You just don’t show up on show day!” It takes weeks of preparation and practice to train your animal to be prepared for the show ring. Our handlers will begin preparing our cattle from the day they hit the ground, and even before that, as they are involved in our AI program and select potential sires for the cows in our stud herd. They are active throughout the whole breeding and growing process

Cattle handling is not for the faint hearted – it takes persistence, perseverance, dedication, patience, resilience, teamwork, and good old fashioned hard work. Its showing up week after week for training, even when you feel you’re not making any progress and you think you have the worst heifer in the team.

If you really think about it, Cattle Handling is just another team sport. You train lots and then compete. Making it to State Championships is the final.

Show day can be very stressful, washing, cleaning, and preparing your animal only for it to wipe snot over your freshly ironed clean shirt or you have done your very best to train your animal and she plays up a treat in the showring. At every show, we have tears and tantrums, mostly it’s the students, sometimes it might be me. This builds resilience and the ability to get back up and have another go.

In my mind, every handler who turns up to training each week and prepares their animal for the showring has already won a blue ribbon – this in itself shows their outstanding dedication and commitment. We have had students compete for many years and not win any ribbons in the showring, but just think of those skills they have gained along the way. We have students who join us for a season, and this is wonderful too, as they gain so many new skills and work as a team. They are our champions too.

This year, we had one of our handlers finally win the big prize one at a show – Champion Handler of the show. This is awarded to the best overall handler of the show regardless of their age. This handler has been participating in the program since Grade 3, when she tagged along with her older sister. Who I might add, was also an outstanding handler. We just couldn’t keep her away from the cattle. At her first show she sat for hours with our baby bull calf – Norfang, from there it all started, and 9 years later she won Champion. 9 Years – can you imagine how that must have felt, finally all that hard work had paid off. Don’t get me wrong, it didn’t take 9 years for her to be an amazing handler, there were just better handlers out there on the day, mostly older ones. When she finishes year 12 next year, she will have done 10 years of cattle handling with Scottsdale High School. What an achievement. This is just one of many similar stories over the 15 years and I’m sure Deanna could share the same. This is why we do it.

Over the years we have travelled around the State and had many great shows and some funny experiences. We’ve had handlers in water troughs while waiting to go in the show ring, our bulls play fighting and tearing the front off the stalls at Westbury, handlers who ‘loose’ their heifers at the show, and at one very memorable show, more vomit than a rough crossing on the Spirit of Tasmania. Team gastro, Chris, I know you can vouch for this one. We can laugh now.

These are the moments that we will remember forever.  

This long-standing program, The Scottsdale High School Cattle Handling Program is what it is, as a result of a strong community that pulls together to support our young people and their future. Over 25 years, it’s been the generosity of the people, businesses and our cattle handling family, who have kept this program running. I would hate to begin to add up the volunteer hours that have supported it.

In closing,  I would like to say a sincere congratulations to Deanna and the past handlers from 1999 – 2008. Congratulations, to the amazing cattle handlers from 2009 to our current team who are here tonight, who I have had the privilege of leading. They provide the inspiration, motivation and passion to continue. To our amazing volunteers and community, thank you for your support over the past 25 years and may the program continue well into the future.

Thank you