Following their attendance at the Gillingham and Shaftesbury Show, dairy judge Dennis Smith, his partner Claire, and farm owner Andy of Oakroyal Holsteins all perished in an automobile accident.
Before his passing, Mr. Smith served as a judge at the Supreme Dairy Championship on Wednesday, August 14, and Thursday, August 15.
According to Oakroyal Holsteins farm, he “did something he absolutely loved” during his final days.
“It is with deep sadness that the Gillingham & Shaftesbury Agricultural Society share the devastating news of the passing of Claire, his partner, and Andy (Oakroyal), as well as Dennis Smith, who was yesterday’s Supreme Dairy Championship judge,” the Gillingham and Shaftesbury Show continued.
Right now, our thoughts are with our friends and family. It’s a tragic loss for the Holstein breed and a sad time for cattle showing and judging.
Mr. Smith received the Holstein UK Lifetime Achievement Award in December.
At the age of sixteen, he won the National Stock Judging Finals while representing Somerset alongside the young farmers. After that, he spent many years training the Devon Young Farmers team in stock judging.
He started working as a herdsman for R Stafford-Smith at the Pottrells herd, where his father managed the farm. Given the chance to own a cow, he purchased a well-bred Terling heifer. At the age of sixteen, Mr. Smith registered the prefix, marking the beginning of the Oakroyal herd.
A position with United Cattle Breeders in starting this new AI business was extended to Mr. Smith. After that, the business joined CBS, where he finally rose to the position of non-executive director.
Mr. Smith began photographing cattle over these years for CBS, other AI companies, individual herds across the country, and the general public. We bought, bred, developed, and sold cows. A farm was leased in the early 1980s, and the owner continued to operate a photography business and serve as a buying agent for cattle intended for export by British Livestock and LMS.
The herd was grown and entered in the inaugural Devon Club Herds Competition, where it won the small herd division and kept winning until the herd’s whole milking section was sold to Lanhydrock Estate.
The small herd section was won again a few years after the milking herd was sold, and this cycle continued annually until the herd dispersion. Before winning Champion Herd in 2018, Oakroyal, a Devon-based team, placed second and third in the finals of the UK Premier Herd Competition seven times. The next week the herd was successfully distributed at an average price per life of £2002, an extraordinarily high trade at the time.
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