The Jersey NZ Female Hall of Fame is an annual award handed out to only the best cows across the country. For a cow to be nominated for the award they must follow the below specifications:
- Any cow that has been registered with JerseyNZ is eligible for nomination (current or historic)
- JerseyNZ will appoint three Judges annually to consider nominations, these judges will be selected from a cross-section of JerseyNZ membership.
- 5 finalists will be chosen and announced via e-mail, website and Facebook prior to Annual Conference.
- Up to 2 cows will be inducted annually into the JerseyNZ Female Hall of Fame at the Annual Conference Awards Night. This presentation will highlight the inductees and their accomplishments
- Any nomination will stay active for the next two years if the cow is not inducted into the Hall of Fame within that time.
- Members do not need to be the owner of a cow to nominate her.
- Members may nominate cows for a variety of reasons, including:
- High genetic merit
- Outstanding progeny
- High production
- Show results
- Great cow family
- Any other accomplishments worthy of consideration
- Nominations for 2027 will open in late 2026
Inducted into the Hall of Fame 2026:
Six finalists were named in April in the 2026 JerseyNZ Hall of Fame:
- Oaklea Golden Faith – nominated by Don Shaw
- Tironui Integ Meg – nominated by Rob & Alison Thwaites
- Cardrona Pepsi S2J – nominated by Bruce Cameron
- Kaitaka TGM Leonie – nominated by Colin Hickey
- Ferdon Comerica Viyella – nominated by Warren Ferguson
- Allandale Royal Lassie – nominated by Michele Barclay
This year, three animals were inducted into the Hall of Fame, as follows:
Ferdon Comerica Viyella
Ferdon Comerica Viyella EX was awarded Excellent at 2 years of age. She was a prolific cow. She started her show career as a yearling, winning her first Junior Champion Breed and All Breeds at NZ Dairy Event 2010. She returned to NZ Dairy Event as a 2-year-old and won Intermediate Champion Breed and All Breeds. In 2011, Viyella returned to NZ Dairy Event and defended her Intermediate Champion title. She won Intermediate Champion Breed and All Breeds. She was competing against her mother, Ferdon Follys Viyella, that year, who was Senior Jersey Champion. The young Ferdon Comerica Viyella took the Supreme Jersey Champion and the Supreme All Breeds Champion. This made her the first Intermediate Champion and the first Jersey cow to win Supreme All Breeds cow.
We again made the trip to Feilding with Ferdon Comerica Viyella as a 4-year-old to take Senior Champion Jersey and Reserve All Breeds Senior Cow at NZ Dairy Event in 2013.
In 2014, she returned to take Senior Jersey Champion and Supreme Jersey Champion.
In 2015, as a 6-year-old, she returned to stamp her mark at NZ Dairy Event by winning Senior Champion and Supreme Champion Breed and All Breeds.
2016 was a repeat performance for Viyella, taking out the Senior Jersey Champion and Supreme Jersey, as well as the Senior and Supreme Jersey, along with the Senior and Supreme All Breeds Champion.
This championship secured her retirement from shows. She has been the only cow at NZ Dairy Event to win Supreme Champion All Breeds three times. She won every championship—Junior, Intermediate, Senior, and Supreme Breed and All Breeds—which took her to be crowned as NZ Dairy Event’s ‘Queen of the Decade’ in 2019. No other cow to date at NZ Dairy Event has achieved what Viyella has achieved.
Amongst these trips to Dairy Event, she was also:
4 x Supreme Champion Jersey at the Waikato A&P Show 2012–15
3 x All Breeds Supreme Champion at the Waikato A&P Show 2012, 2014, and 2015
Named the National Supreme Conformation Winner in the 2014 Semex On Farm Challenge
Named the All NZ Jersey Dairy Cow for highest production with 9,078 litres and 936 kg milksolids in 296 days at 9 years of age
In 2011, she graced the cover of Cowsmopolitan Magazine. Her two sons, Ferdon Sultan Volcom and Ferdon Hired Gun Villiam, have left their marks in New Zealand herds.
Her three EX daughters are presently being flushed for the USA.
Her mother, Ferdon Follys Viyella, is a Hall of Fame recipient, so it is with great pride that we nominate Ferdon Comerica Viyella EX for the Jersey Hall of Fame.
Tironui Integ Meg
Tironui Integ Meg was born in 2012. Already we believe the performance of her sons, daughters and their offspring make her at least the equal of any breeding cow – across all breeds – that the New Zealand Dairy Industry has seen, since the inception of AB approximately 75 years ago.
Her first four sons with daughter proofs are:
- Tironui Superman ET – BW 550 – LIC’s highest selling jersey bull in 2021. A daughter sold for $55,000. Superman has been used as a Sire of Sons.
- Okura Tironui BT Mario ET – BW 550
- Okura Tironui BT Marco ET – BW 529
- Tironui GB Montage ET – BW 614 – Jersey NZ Future’s outstanding sire is presently being used as a Sire of Sons.
Having her first four sons with BW this high is simply unprecedented.
More sons are to follow at three AB companies – the latest being a Greenmile PKC Summit son – recently going to CRV.
One grandson, Tironui PKC Megabyte already has a daughter proof – BW 544 – with many more grandsons having been purchased by different AB companies.
As well as very high BWs, Meg and her offspring have good BVs, making the males very commercially marketable and the females very well-liked herd members.
Meg currently has 15 in-milk daughters in five herds – Tironui, Okura, Lynbrook, Rockland and Stoney Creek, and 40 in-milk granddaughters in six herds.
No surprises here, with Meg’s female descendants being very valued members of the above herds and performing at the very high level that would be expected. They include bull mothers, with presumably more to come.
Meg is typical of the very best Okura LT Integrity daughters, with great capacity, a well attached vessel and perfect teat placement. Her outstanding conformation was recognised by LIC, with her photo being used to represent Integrity (LIC Hall of Fame Sire) in their catalogues.
For a cow still living, Meg’s contribution to the Jersey Breed is already nothing short of
remarkable, and it is for this reason that Alison and I have much pleasure in nominating Tironui Integ Meg for the 2025 Jersey Hall of Fame.
Allandale Royal Lassie
In Levin on 30 August 1950, a striking broken-coloured calf was born. Aptly named Allandale Royal Lassie VHC CP SD Elite Merit, she truly embodies a Hall of Fame Jersey cow. It’s no wonder Lassie
turned out the way she did because she was royally bred, her dam being Sunny Meadows Lassie VHC CP, her breeding was the famous Owler Majesty Cross tracing six times to Owler of Puketapu (Champion Butterfat bull) and three times to the famous KuKu Brooklet VHC who won 61 Championships, she was the 1920’s record holder. Lassies sire Allandale Royal Currency merit sire being a double grandson of the famous show champion Braeside Dawn VHC SD; winning 40 championships, two Royals and two North Island championships in the 1930’s. Lassie not only built an outstanding show record in her own right, but also became the foundation behind many of the greatest show cows produced by the KuKu and Allandale Studs. Remarkably, she calved every year of her life while consistently ranking among the top-producing cows in the herd.
She attained VHC, the highest classification awarded in her era, along with CP (Commended Progeny) for producing two or more VHC-classified daughters. Lassie also earned SD (Superior Dam) status, having produced two or more sons that achieved Merit Sire recognition. In addition, she was
awarded Elite Merit for calving six consecutive years while maintaining outstanding production levels. In her peak year, Lassie produced an exceptional 660 pounds of butterfat, further cementing
her legacy as an extraordinary Jersey cow.
In the 1950s, when natural service sires were dominant and artificial insemination was not yet widely used, Allandale Royal Lassie established herself as an influential brood cow. She produced four notable sons — Allandale Neat Laddie, Allandale Lassie’s Boy, Allandale Lassie’s Victor and Allandale Show Laddie— two of whom went on to achieve Merit Sire recognition.
Each was sold to studs across New Zealand, extending her influence well beyond her home herd. Through her lineage, particularly via Allandale Folly’s Sultan — later recognised as a Superior Sire in New Zealand, and also strongly used in Australia — her genetics left a lasting mark on the breed. His daughters in New Zealand as of 1985 included 4 Excellent (EX), 115 Very Highly Commended (VHC), and 332 classified cows. At that time, cows were required to be at least 10 years old to attain EX status, underscoring the significance of this achievement.
She was undefeated in the show ring as a yearling, taking top honours in her breed at the Manawatu A&P Show, Feilding A&P Show, and Horowhenua A&P Show. As an in-milk cow, she continued her dominance in the ring from two through to eight years of age. During this time, she was awarded
Jersey Cow Champion at the Horowhenua A&P Show on five consecutive years in a row — a remarkable achievement that cemented her legacy. Lassie’s influence remains strongly evident in our herd today, not only in the show ring but also in production performance. If you’ve seen our
current show teams at the New Zealand Dairy Event, you’ve witnessed the strength of her bloodlines — present behind the majority of our team.
Notable descendants include:
* Allandale Sybils Regal EX – Great granddaughter of Allandale Royal Lassie, nine-time championship winner.
* Allandale Julianna EX – Daughter of Allandale Sybils Regal, one championship winner and dam of Allandale Follys Sultan (Superior Sire).
* Allandale Neros Lassie EX 9-9 – Triple Royal Show Champion. Top production – 7222L, 700Kg Ms.
* Allandale Celebs Illusion EX 9-9 – Four-year-old class winner, Reserve Senior Jersey
Champion at the New Zealand Dairy Event, and Reserve Senior Jersey North Island
Champion. Top production – 267 days 6989.7L, 548 Kg Ms.
* Allandale Tbone Lassette EX 9-9 – Won her respected breed class at the New Zealand Dairy Event as a two-, three-, and four-year-old. Top production – 293 days 7393L, 634Kg Ms.
Her legacy continues to shape the strength, consistency, and excellence of our herd today. I leave this nomination wanting to recognise how influential my great great grandfather has been in the breeding of the jersey cow that we strive for – open-framed, excellent dairy bone, capacious with well attached udders, heavy milkers and soft temperaments. As noted in “The Jersey Review” February 1958 – “we pay tribute to the memory of a grand pioneer of the past, R. L. Horn, who by his
knowledge and skill in breeding jerseys contributed so much to the Breed’s success in this country”.
Inducted into the Hall of Fame 2025:
Big Hollow Omens Beauty
Inducted into the Hall of Fame 2024:
Kevilor Sameen
Cardrona Fjord Bethany
Inducted into the Hall of Fame 2023:
Ferdon Follys Viyella
Glenui Integrity Lace ET
Hall of Fame 2022:
Okura Admirals Iris
Glanton Mans Blanche