Winning the supreme fleece of the show is a special moment for any exhibitor, but this is one that Steve and Brett Koehler, Radnor stud, Langhorne Creek and Brinkley, will cherish for years to come.
Their heavy cutting, medium wool fleece was from one of their top ewes, which they had named Leila - after their late mother who passed away last year.
"When we showed her last year in Bendigo there was a class of 20 and she got third and she got fourth or fifth here so it was really disappointing, but we took her home and shore her and this is the fleece," Steve said.
"Mum was a big supporter of the stud."
Last year was a tough season. For the first time since 1990 they didn't exhibit wool at Adelaide, but with a few good show ewes' fleeces they decided to make a return.
"We had four or five really good ewe's fleeces so we decided to show again along with a ram's fleece and came away with champion Country Shows ram's fleece and ewe's fleece, and grand champion and reserve champion Merino ewe's fleeces," Steve said.
The supreme fleece, which was off a Collinsville-bred ewe, scored 87 points out of a possible 100, including a full 40 points for clean fleece weight. It was 11.4 kilograms.
Steve says wool cut is critical and believes some growers are selling themselves short from not running heavy cutting ewes.
"It starts with the sheep, you have to have good constitution, good barrel and good size and then you have to put as good a skin on it to grow a good fleece and as much as you can, while maintaining that plain bodied sheep," Steve said.
Brett said they were absolutely "stoked" to win their second supreme title - also winning in 2016, especially against such strong competition - a ram's fleece that was nearly 18 kilograms.
The grand champion Merino ram's fleece was the 17.7kg fleece from the Meyer family's 2024 horned strong wool ram Mulloorie 'Brooksy'.
It was 21.1M with a 68pc yield and scored 84.5 points out of a possible 100.
The Koehlers have exhibited wool from their 1500 stud ewes at many country shows across the state and Brett say it is about giving back to the community and enabling the public to see woollen fleeces.
Wool judge and Nutrien key account manager Trevor James described the supreme fleece, which had a 71 per cent yield, as a "magnificent white fleece showing good character and style".
"To me it stood out as a ewe's fleece, it is such an even fleece," he said.
While the numbers of entries were up, especially in the school wether classes, Mr James said the quality was back a bit.
He encouraged entrants to spend more time on ensuring their fleeces were adequately skirted.
"When you are preparing the fleece turn it upside down and then you will find the skirtings, or any skin," he said.
Mr James said while yields were down due to the drought, it was a credit to people in some of the driest conditions to still be growing good style wool with plenty of weight.
"The wool market is starting to improve and is starting to take a lot of these lower yielding wools and hopefully in a lot of areas the higher yielding wools are coming through so the discounts are slowly coming back," he said.