Agricultural
27 April, 2024
Champion ewe named after the late Ally Jaffrey
Gilgandra’s Horan family feels a deep sense of pride after a merino ewe named in memory of their late daughter Ally Jaffrey won a prestigious award at The Sydney Royal Easter Show recently.
Gilgandra’s Horan family feels a deep sense of pride after a merino ewe named in memory of their late daughter Ally Jaffrey won a prestigious award at The Sydney Royal Easter Show recently. Ally Jaffery (nee Horan) had battled myelofibrosis, a rare type of bone marrow cancer, for five years before she passed away on February 17 this year. She was just 33. A stem cell (bone marrow) transplant in 2018 was successful but Ally relapsed in 2022. Ally’s mother Christine Horan told The Gilgandra Weekly that Ally survived the last 15 months of her short life due to receiving regular blood transfusions. “It’s an important part of her story,” Mrs Horan noted. The Horan family want to spread the message of how important it is people become blood donors. Every 28 minutes someone in Australia is diagnosed with a form of blood cancer.
Ally’s generosity to community and her commitment to her profession was valued. Ally was well-respected within the Australian wool industry. She worked as the wool area manager for Nutrien Ag Solutions at Crookwell, near Goulburn. Ally was the Southern Tablelands Flock Ewe Competition secretary and also won the coveted wool classing golden stencil competition at The Sydney Royal Easter Show in 2014. To win the golden stencil, Ally was named as the best graduate wool classer in Australia that year by the Australian Wool Exchange (AWEX) after attending NSW TAFE Illawarra. “Ally completed the tasks of classing crossbred, medium merino and fine merino wool as well as exercises in AWEX-ID, valuation and an oral presentation to the judges,” an AWEX media release of the time stated. “Ally demonstrated her all-round ability to class wool and perform under the pressure of the competition.”
It was these skills within the wool industry and her humanity that captured the attention of the Frost family who operate the Thalabah Merino stud near Crookwell. The Frosts and Ally Jaffrey were close friends. Sam Frost, 12, and his parents Kristen and Anthony Frost named their ewe in tribute to Ally. “When we got the ewe we decided to name her Ally as she was a real good ewe and she stood out to us," Sam Frost told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC). Now two-and-a-half, Ally was sashed Supreme Merino Ewe Exhibit at The Sydney Royal Easter Show. “Luckily she won supreme, which is a nice memory to name that ewe after someone that is a really great person and meant a lot of everyone in the community," Sam told the ABC. “It means a fair bit to us and hopefully to her family.”
The award-winning ewe does mean a lot to the Horans. “Naming the ewe after Ally was a lovely acknowledgement of her achievements in the wool industry by the lovely Frost family,” Mrs Horan told The Gilgandra Weekly. “It makes us proud that she was recognised in that way. Ally was very well-respected within the wool industry.” Kristen Frost told ABC to win the supreme with a ewe named after Ally was: “About paying tribute to one of the most beautiful women I have ever met. Ally Jaffrey was so incredibly special to me, as a friend, colleague and support to our stud Thalabah. “Her death has had a massive effect on me and Frosty [Anthony], who was also close to her.”
In 2022, when Ally relapsed, the Crookwell community banded together to produce a nude calendar to raise money for Ally and her husband Cody. In all, the ABC reported that 150 people and 56 businesses were involved in the nude calendar named ‘Crookwell Bares All’. Anthony Frost noted that it was a mark of Ally’s character and importance within Crookwell that people didn’t think twice about posing without clothes to raise money and awareness for her. “You don't get as many people that are so community minded as Ally,” he said. “Nothing was ever a problem for her. She was in every committee, going from the rugby union club right through to the flock ewe competitions, and also the show society. She was always going above and beyond.”
Ally was humbled by the support but told ABC in 2022 it was blood donations that were most needed, as she relied on regular blood transfusions to survive. It was a point her mother Christine Horan emphasised. Ally Jaffrey attended St Joseph’s School and then Gilgandra High School before heading to university in Orange. Later she settled in Crookwell and worked for Landmark which then become Nutrien Ag Solutions. Ally Jaffrey is survived by her husband Cody, father Peter, mother Christine, brother Benjamin, sister-in-law Rebekah and niece Willow, who Ally was able to meet three days before her passing.
To learn more about donating bone marrow visit www.giftoflife.org.au and about donating blood visit www.lifeblood.com.au/blood.
