Emma the flock star: Real-life Bo Peep is the first woman to win sheepdog contest in its 40-year history
- Emma Gray has become the first female winner of the Northumberland Sheepdog Trials League, which began in 1976
- Aged 23 she convinced the National Trust to give her sole tenancy of the 150-acre Fallowlees Farm
|
After making her name as Britain’s youngest shepherdess, she is used to smashing barriers.
But now Emma Gray has gone one step further – by becoming the first woman to win a prestigious sheepdog championship in the contest’s four-decade history.
The 27-year-old impressed judges in the Northumberland Sheepdog Trials League, which began in 1976, with her six-year-old sheepdog Roy, who she has had since he was a puppy.
Shepherdess Emma Gray, 27, from Elsdon, Northumberland, who has become the first woman to win a sheepdog trial championship in its history
Emma Gray and her winning sheepdog Roy wowed judges who awarded her top marks
The award is the latest high point in her extraordinary rise from helping out at her parents’ farm in Hawick in the Scottish Borders to winning the mantle of running a National Trust farm in Northumberland aged just 23.
Miss Gray, who is the third generation in her family to work in farming, said: ‘I am really proud to be the first woman to have won the trials and I feel overwhelmed by it all.
‘I was one of only a handful of women taking part; it is a very male-dominated sport, so it feels like an amazing achievement.’
The league involves more than 30 dogs competing in 25 trials over the course of a season and Miss Gray said she was determined to triumph.
‘It was always my ambition to win,’ she said. ‘When I first started competing there was a shepherd sat in the judge’s car who put money on me to win. That was my first trial. I am pleased to have won him his bet.’
Last year Miss Gray published an autobiography called One Girl And Her Dog, describing her quest for romance as a singleton in the wilderness.
Miss Gray began working with dogs at 13, and is is currently training Roy¿s five-month-old puppies
League chairman Bevis Jordan said: ‘I cannot remember any other women winning. It has always been won by a man before this. It is a good achievement for her because she has not been trialling for very long.
‘She has been consistently good all through this season. There are one or two women that compete as well but she is strong competition for everybody at the minute.
‘There does seem to be a few more women willing to participate in this sport now.’
Miss Gray is currently training Roy’s five-month-old puppies and said that they take after their father.
She began working with dogs at 13 and said that by the time she was 17, she knew it was her calling, choosing to study sheep management at college.
Aged 23, after a heartbreaking split from her fiancé, she convinced the National Trust to give her sole tenancy of the 150-acre Fallowlees Farm.
The property has no mains electricity or gas supply and uses a windmill-powered hot water system.
But Miss Gray, who has represented England in the International Sheepdog Trials, has run the farm successfully ever since.
Last year she published an autobiography called One Girl And Her Dog, describing her quest for romance as a singleton in the wilderness.
She was nicknamed ‘Britain’s loneliest shepherdess’ and the book sparked a rush for her affections.
But yesterday she revealed she has found love with a local vet, although she still lives on her farm alone.
She said: ‘I suppose you could say I am no longer Britain’s loneliest shepherdess.
‘We have been together for ten months and everything is going well.’
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2480495/Emma-Gray-real-life-Bo-Peep-woman-win-Northumberland-sheepdog-contest.html#ixzz2jLAlxBSK
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook
No comments:
Post a Comment