Since being awarded the supreme longwool exhibit at the Australian Sheep & Wool Show in 2019 with his Border Leicester ewe, Mr Schilling has purchased a new farm, doubled his stud flock, and is preparing to hold his first on-property ram sale.

"It has always been a dream of mine to win a champion so to win the interbreed was very unexpected and overwhelming," he said.

"I thought she was a good little ewe all the way through, but I probably didn't realise how good she was until she won.

"The win really confirmed my breeding direction and I'm very excited with the way my sheep are going."

The then 11-month-old ewe was sired by a Glenlee Park home-bred ram lamb out of an ex-show ewe that had won junior champion at Hamilton Sheepvention.

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The winning ewe has been retained in the stud producing a "smart little ram lamb" late in the season last year.

Mr Schilling's interest in sheep came from hours spent as a child helping his late grandfather, Mervyn Schilling, who ran a self-replacing Merino flock at Glenlee in the west Wimmera.

"My grandfather just loved his stock and ever since I was a little kid I was always over at Pa's, helping in the yards, during shearing and feeding sheep with him," he said.

"My grandfather was a big supporter of mine and he would have been very excited to see my ewe win."

Glenlee Park was registered in 2009 with the purchase of five Border Leicester ewes from the Miakite stud dispersal and Mr Schilling, who is also a stock agent for Driscoll, McIllree & Dickinson, has slowly built his numbers up from there.

He is currently running 200 stud ewes.

"I bought my own 120-hectare property near Dimboola in 2019 and was running 80 stud ewes and then last year I was able to buy a property from my grandmother, doubling the size of my farm," he said.

"I then had the opportunity to buy a line of 110 cast-for-age Retallack stud Border Leicester ewes which the Grinter family couldn't keep due to the drought."

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Mr Schilling joined the ewes through artificial insemination (AI) last year, using one of his young home-bred rams, which was sold at the Horsham Show and Sale in 2018.

"I thought a lot of this young ram and have used him pretty heavily, nearly all of this year's show team are sired by him," he said.

"We had a massive AI result with 80 per cent in lamb and ended up with 150 lambs which has given the stud a real boost."

Mr Schilling has focused on breeding big sheep that stand up well on their feet and are structurally very correct.

"Some people believe sheep are getting too big but at the end of the day I think the most productive sheep is a big sheep, you get more wool and you get more lambs," he said.

"You don't go to a store sheep sale like Wycheproof or a first-cross ewe sale at Naracoorte and see the smallest sheep in the pen make the biggest money."

Mr Schilling is busy preparing his show team of six rams and four ewes for the ASWS and is looking forward to getting back in the show ring.

"I'm very excited with how my sheep look, they are probably some of the best young rams I've bred so it will be good to get out there again," he said.

With a client base building throughout the Wimmera region, Mr Schilling will hold his first on-property sale in September.

This year, Glenlee Park joined Lambplan and has also gained MN2 Ovine Johnes accreditation.

"Breeding sheep is something that I love and if you are going to do it properly you have to have all those boxes ticked for people," he said.

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