Four decades of breeding Poll Herefords

Built on good cattle and a long view

Llandillo Poll Herefords was established in 1984 by the Kensit family at Crookwell, and purchased by John Neradovsky in 2001.

Under John's ownership the stud moved to "Apsley Downs" at The Lagoon, just south of Bathurst, and built a strong reputation — including an on-property bull sale and a loyal commercial following.

John Neradovsky is a self-made man. He built one of Sydney's larger plastering companies from the ground up — working on the tools himself until recently, even while running a business of over 100 staff. He had a small farm and a small Poll Hereford stud before Apsley Downs, but it was when he purchased the property in 1999 and the Llandillo stud in 2001 that things became serious.

He is 71 years old and still comes from Sydney every weekend — not as an owner inspecting his investment, but as a farm hand who picks up whatever needs doing alongside the team. It says a great deal about the man. He is quietly proud of what Llandillo has become, but you would never hear him say so. The faith he places in Lee to run the program, make the decisions and set the direction is the kind of trust that is earned and rarely given.

The female first — always

Everything at Llandillo starts with the cow. We keep every heifer we breed unless she is culled for temperament — and we join all heifers to calve at or under two years old on a six-week joining. They are then rejoined to calve with their second calf at or under three, and we expect them to wean at 65% of body weight on that second calf. We believe this is the most honest culling process available to us. It tells us everything we need to know about fertility, doing ability and structural soundness under real conditions — and it is the foundation of the herd's performance.

After that, our culling criteria are simple: teats, teeth and toes. If an udder can't hold up, if feet start to go, or if age catches up, the decision is made. It sounds straightforward, but it isn't always easy. We have culled farm favourites and ribbon winners by this process, and we have never wavered from it — because our goal is not to keep cattle we love looking at. Our goal is to give the commercial producer a female that lasts, weans a heavy calf and makes them money year after year.

What we are breeding for

Every bull we purchase or use through AI is chosen with one picture in mind: cattle with as much top as possible — deep-sided, long-fronted, on big sound feet. We want cattle that flesh easily and handle the light soils and cold temperatures of this country without needing hand-feeding to look the part. They have to be soft and easy-doing, but they cannot afford to be small.

The hardest thing in breeding Herefords is adding thickness without losing the front end. We think about this constantly. Our view is that angulation and neck extension matter more than raw birth weight for calving ease — a calf that comes into the world correctly presented on a structurally sound dam does not need to be light to be easy. We are chasing cattle that have both: the length, extension and phenotype that catches your eye in the show ring, and the constitution and fertility that keeps them earning their place in a commercial herd for a decade.

From a small core to 300-plus stud females

Since 2016 the focus has been simple and relentless: breed and retain quality females, use proven AI sires that are working across multiple studs, and build a herd we can be genuinely proud and confident of.

That patient, female-first approach has taken Llandillo from a small registered core back to more than 300 stud females — cattle bred for structural correctness and a soft, easy-doing type that performs for the commercial breeder.

In 2026 close to 370 females will join, with embryos placed in the bottom-end cows to lift the whole herd's bottom line faster — and the return of the on-property bull sale firmly in our sights.

The manager behind the program

Lee White's connection to Poll Herefords goes back further than most. He attended his first cattle show as a young boy leading for his uncle Allen White's stud, Kingsclair Poll Herefords, out of Yass NSW — growing up in Penrith but spending as much time as he could around cattle. Allen was a formative figure in Lee's life, and when he passed away in 1994, Lee responded the only way that made sense — he registered his own stud. Sunderlee Poll Herefords was born that same year, founded on a cow purchased at just eleven years old.

Lee competed at youth shows from 1993 — his first national Poll Hereford Youth Show was in Dubbo that year — and continued showing as a junior right through to his mid-twenties. Much of that junior career was shaped by Grahame Williams of Elfdale Poll Herefords in Windsor, who gave Lee the opportunity to prepare and show heifers from his property on weekends and at shows. It was a formative arrangement — Lee would buy a heifer that stayed in the Elfdale show team — not unlike what Llandillo now does with young exhibitors like Harrison and Samuel Guy. Grahame, now retired and running a small Hereford herd near Bathurst, was one of two people Lee credits with keeping him in the industry.

The other is John Neradovsky, owner of Llandillo, for whom Lee worked casually at shows long before he joined the property full-time.

In 2000 Lee took a position managing the cattle operation at Stapleton Poll Herefords at Upper Rouchel — a 10,000-acre property running stud cattle alongside a large steer feeding program. During that time the stud won Reserve Interbreed Bull at Melbourne Royal. In 2002 he moved to Moorefield Red Angus as stud manager, building their operation from the ground up, running their first on-property bull sale, and winning Supreme Red Angus Exhibit at Sydney Royal in both years he was there — the first broad ribbon the owners had ever won.

After a period of contracting and a two-year stint at Sydney University working as a technical officer for veterinary student practicals and on research trials, Lee arrived at Llandillo in 2011 as a farm hand. He took over as manager in 2016 and has driven the stud's rebuild ever since. Throughout the years away, Sunderlee Poll Herefords kept running on the side — showing where possible — until the last of the cows were sold into the Llandillo herd when Lee and his family settled at Apsley Downs permanently. Today Lee and Claire also run White Family Beef, a 20-cow Red Angus herd on Llandillo, with their son Max doing his own work.