Sydney Royal 2022: Sarah Sutton wins 2021 national beef young judges

The 23-year-old, who runs Double S Shorthorns, is skilled in both judging and handling, but says judging is the area she always knew she wanted to be competitive.

"I love talking about cows," she said. "Winning the national final is definitely a big bucket list item - I am so excited."

Selected back in 2019 to represent her state, Miss Sutton said she was happy to finally get to compete and took it a step further to also represent Victoria in the 2022 ASA national beef cattle young paraders championship in which she placed second.

Her success at Sydney in the past has also resulted in her winning champion in the 2021 RAS Youth Show junior judging competition, and the 2019 open beef cattle paraders competition.

Already having experience judging at local shows in her state, Miss Sutton hopes to get more judging opportunities and to one day exhibit a grand champion Shorthorn bull at a Royal show.

"I have judged in my own right and as an associate at local shows included Ballarat and Swan Hill," she said.

"I like judging more than paraders... handlers kind of snuck up on me a bit - I didn't aim to do so well, but I always knew I wanted to judge.

"Next I'd love to judge a small breed at a Royal."

Miss Sutton grew up on a commercial operation in the North West of Victoria where they ran cattle sheep and a small feedlot.

"I've had commercial cows my whole life," she said.

"Then at 14 years I got a scholarship to Ballarat Grammar which had a fantastic ag program - a sheep show team and (Australian) Lowline show team - and we took cattle to all the junior shows and Melbourne Royal.

"When I finished with school, other studs picked me up and I went around with them and entered junior judging and handlers competitions when we went to local and Royal Shows.

"I also went through a lot of Shorthorn Youth and Angus Youth programs... I loved showing and kept doing it until I got competitive."

With a Bachelor of Agribusiness from Marcus Oldham College, Miss Sutton is now running around 10 registered females in her Double S stud. She is also the secretary of the Shorthorn Youth Club of Australia.

"We are going a lot of embryo work... we are looking at putting in 40 embryos this year, last year we did 20," she said.

"I will have my first couple of sale bulls for Dubbo (Shorthorn National) next year. I can't say enough about the Shorthorn breed - as a whole it is fantastic and breeders are so supportive."

Runner-up was Angus Llewellyn of Keith representing South Australia, and third was Alice Hall of Scottsdale representing Tasmania.

Other representative were; Grace Burns representing New South Wales and Mackenzie Leeson representing Queensland.

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