Brittany Abbott achieves national success

We’re really excited to introduce Brittany who has joined RIST as Program Support with a livestock focus in Beef and Dairy to our training team.

Brittany’s third generation at Turanga Red Poll Stud located in Kolora, Victoria. She has always had a strong passion for livestock and been fascinated by genetics and breeding. She is heavily involved in the Turanga breeding program, conformation selection, genomics, international export and an executive member for the Red Poll Society.

Brittany has also received industry recognition for carcass success following the 2026 Southern Grassfed Carcase Classic event. Brittany entered her own Turanga steers and brought a portion of steers from Don Castle of Koallah Park Red Polls as yearlings that were also sired by Turanga sires. Brittany’s outlook was gaining performance carcass data via progeny testing that would be utilised for future breeding decisions. Brittany also wanted to put a line of 17- to 21-month-old finished grassfed steers together and reflect on the data in a large interbreed and cross bred competition as a comparison. She was pleased to see consistent high-quality carcasses.

Six steers placed in the top 20 out of 768 entries in Class 2 – Single Steer or Heifer 0 – 2 teeth SHCW 260.1 – 340kg. Brittany also achieved the Overall Highest MSA Eating Quality Index with a score of 65.43 MSA points with a MSA Marble of 610 which was the third highest in the competition with notably 1237 entries overall. She also placed second in the best team of 3 animals and best team of 10 animals.

Earlier this year, Brittany prepared and exhibited a team of four stud and two carcass exibits at the 2026 Sydney Royal Show. Her bulls placed Junior and Reserve Junior Bull, Grand Champion Bull and Turanga Federer went on to win Supreme Red Poll Exhibit against a national field of exhibitors! Her steer was the highest scoring Red Poll carcass and also part of the Stan Hill team that placed third in the interbreed.

In August, Brittany was part of the Victorian team entered into the 2026 Agricultural Shows Australia’s National Young Judges Championships held at this year’s Royal Queensland Show. The national Victorian team comprise young judges of beef and dairy cattle, grain, merino sheep and fleece, meat breeds sheep, poultry, the Australian Young Farmers Challenge, and National Rural Ambassador Award. Qualification is via success in competitive regional and state competitions. Brittany judged the beef cattle that is scored on 200 points. The point system is broken down to 150 points based on the animal placings which are selected by an over judge across three classes of four head and a further 50 points based on speaking ability, corrected terminology and presentation.

The Victorian team was declared the 2026 Keast Shield Winner. This is only the third time Victoria has won the shield with previous wins 2021 and 2025 which Brittany was also a part of.

At RIST, Brittany will have a trainee coordination caseload for Certificate II, Certificate III in Agriculture and Diploma of Agriculture. Brittany will also be involved in support, review and improvement of the Heifers for Profit program with Natasha Wilkinson, RIST National Program Manager. Brittany is currently completing her TAE IV and will be based at the RIST Terang Campus.

(Photos supplied: Left: VAS Showing Victoria Beef Cattle Judging Natioanal Finalist. Right: Brittany with Turanga Rusty (right) and Turanga Federer (left))