'I'm here to meet Jim Dockery about the bull grooming," I tell the first friendly-looking woman who crosses my path at Ossory Agricultural Show, in Co Laois.
She looks at me suspiciously. “What breed?”
It’s my turn to look suspicious. Well, more confused, really. I make a noncommittal face.
She tries again. “What colour?”
“I’ve no idea,” I say, looking at all the farmers milling around in the muddy fields around me. “He’s white, I suppose.”
“Not the man,” she sighs. “His cattle.”
Oh. Right. I’ve no idea, so I wander away sheepishly. Never having been to an agricultural show, I’d assumed finding the man who’d volunteered to school me in bull grooming would be easy. I mean, how many men shampooing cattle can you fit in a Midlands field on a rainy Sunday morning?
Loads, it turns out. There are hundreds of cattle tethered to railings in makeshift gazebos and they’re all being brushed and polished by teams of farming folk. There are also countless sheep bleating and pigs giving out about a spontaneous donkey threesome happening in a pen beside the cattle shower. It’s bedlam.
I find another farmer. “I’m looking for Jim Dockery,” I say.
“There he is, over there with all those black lads,” he tells me. And so he is. He’s washing down his black Angus bulls and he greets me with a smile and a bottle of shampoo.
Before I start work, he tells me about his show times. Today is his season debut and he’s likely to bring animals to 10 or more agricultural shows across the country before summer’s end. His six young children and his wife, Tara, always travel with him. The rosettes that billow in the breeze by his gazebo suggest he’s a man to beat.
He’s been preparing for months. Potential winners are identified almost as soon as they’re born. Beasts with “smart heads” and muscular torsos are watched closely. Once an animal shows show potential, it’s whisked away from its less attractive peers and sent to bovine boot camp to be introduced to tethers and people.
Two weeks out, they’re given a scrub and a haircut. “It’s important to give them a trim well before the show to allow the hair time to settle down,” Dockery says.
They get another wash two days before the event but the real grooming takes place on the big day.
This is where I come in. First of all I’ll have to shampoo Dockery’s three bulls and the cow, all of which have had dung-related episodes on their short journey from farm to field. They’ll have to be rinsed with a high-pressure hose, blow-dried and brushed. There’ll be baby oil and the bull equivalent of fake tan.
Bucking wildly
“Careful now,” he warns as I take up a ridiculous position behind the biggest bull’s back legs. “He kicks quite hard so it’s probably best not to stand there,” he says with the patience of a parent talking to a small, not very bright child. I move to the front and the bull catches sight of me. He doesn’t like what he sees and starts bucking wildly before lurching to my side and headbutting me just above the waist.
As my day as a bull whisperer progresses, I learn I know virtually nothing about their world. I ask where my bull’s horns are and am told not all bulls have horns. I ask if the cow is the baby bull’s mammy. Dockery laughs and tells me she’s a heifer. I nod wisely and try and remember what a heifer is (it’s a cow that hasn’t had a calf).
As we talk, my bull rears again. Dockery gently steers the high-pressure blow-drier I’m using away from the beast’s head. “Sometimes they don’t like it in their ears,” he tells me. Fair enough.
“I am going to be showing one of the bulls,” his son Ronan (9) tells me.
“We have a box of rosettes at home,” he adds, his chest swelling with pride. Dockery tells me he enters the shows mainly for his children. “They love it. You wouldn’t be doing it for the prize money anyway.” A top prize in a category is €50.
He breeds Shorthorn and Angus cattle, and both are getting good prices at the factories. With all the preening, it’s easy to forget the abattoir is their ultimate destination. Forgetting is easier when you hear their names. Rachel is the Shorthorn heifer. Ronan is a Shorthorn too. Louis is the big black Angus and Munchkin is a smaller version of him.
We take the Angus bulls to be weighed. Louis is 404kg and Munchkin is 342kg. These numbers matter. If they measure up they'll both enter the Aldi Class competition. It's reserved for beasts that have put on no more than 1.7kg each day from when they were born. "It stops people saying their animals are three months younger than they are to get a size advantage," says Dockery. "It cuts out the nonsense."
Pat Sheedy from Roscrea gets his cattle ready in the neighbouring pen. He points to his prize animal. "That's Merrybell. She has a beautiful head, a good top line and a nice back. She's a stylish, traditional Shorthorn colour," he says. I nod wisely like I know a good cow when I see one.
By now Rachel the heifer’s hairdo is looking very fluffy, like she’s been wired to a plug socket. Her style isn’t enough to impress the judges, though. She comes third, as does Munchkin.
The two Ronans are up. Before judging takes place, a bull makes a break for it and barrels up one of the grassy aisles leading from the ring. This is no Spanish bull run and there’s no panic. The farmers know exactly what to do. Most step calmly to one side as the half-ton beast thunders past. He turns a few corners before being placated.
The excitement over, the judging takes place. The Ronans finish second.
Imelda Middleton judged him. "I'm looking for sweetness, power, tidy heads and a great walk," she tells me. "Ronan is a smart, powerful bull for April and in time he'll finish first."
Last up is Louis, my bull. We coat him in Megashine – a kind of hairspray for bulls – and I massage baby oil into his head and rub a black cream into his hooves to make them shine. In a borrowed lab coat, I lead Louis into the ring.
He’s not a raging bull until he senses that I think I’m in charge. To put manners on me he leaps from side to side as I walk in front of the judges. Dockery steadies Louis’s nerves and mine. He tells me Louis is being disturbed by the PA announcements for the start of the “most suitably dressed gentleman” competition. Louis finishes second. I’m not even placed in the “most suitably dressed gentleman” competition.
Four rosettes but no winner. But there’s still time. The Aldi Classes comes next. Munchkin and Louis have passed the weight tests. Both win first prize and the right to enter the Aldi-sponsored Angus bull calf competition at the Iverk Show in Kilkenny on August 22nd. It is the richest bull calf competition in Europe.
There is much excitement among the Dockery clan. I’m feeling pretty pleased with myself too. I walk up to give Louis a congratulatory pat. He pins me to some railings before stomping off with a snort. There’s gratitude for you.
