He's worth $108,000 and he's missing. And the man who bred the six-figure beast reckons he's been stolen by "some idiot".
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He is an Angus bull officially called Texas Powerplay P613.
Powerplay, as we'll call him, has gone missing from Kelly Angus, a top cattle stud about 100km north-east of Melbourne. Police are on the case.
Benalla Detective Senior Sergeant Gary Dean said it was "still early days yet".
"Kelly Angus are still looking around the property, making sure the bull hasn't jumped over the fences," Det Snr Sgt Dean said.
"They have had choppers up there, we will probably get our chopper up there to have a look around - it is a large property, 8500 hectares.
"It is a big, solid bit of meat, that one.
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"Sometimes they just turn up on someone else's property, a bull will go where a bull goes," the farm crime liaison officer said.
"Who is going to stop that big thing? Certainly not a little fence - if they want to go, they will go."
Understandably Powerplay's breeders, from Texas Angus in Warialda, NSW, are among those most upset.
Stud co-principal Ben Mayne believes the only logical explanation was the bull - whose maternal brother Iceman sold this year for $225,000 - had been stolen.
"You would have to be a very dumb person to try and steal a bull with that profile - he was super quiet, he was the sort of bull who you could walk up to in a paddock and he would come up for pat.
"He wouldn't be hard to muster up and put into a trailer, because he is so quiet.
"He is probably quiet enough to push onto a trailer, if you had something to feed him - that's the only explanation I can think of, some idiot has tried to do that, not realising who he is.
"I just hope they find him, because he is a bull we want to keep using for quite a few years."
Kelly Angus livestock manager Patrick Joyce said all involved were "gutted" by the bull's disappearance.
Mr Joyce said everyone involved with the bull was completely baffled.
"We are all on the same path and understanding that it's a completely confusing situation and we are just gutted, absolutely gutted.
"We have done everything possible, everything we can do, to find the bull - and he's just not here."
Det Sen Sgt Dean said information could be provided anonymously to Crimestoppers, local police or at the Yea weaner sale, on Friday, where officers would be staffing an information stand.
Crimestoppers: 1800 333 000
Andrew Miller
I'm a general reporter with Stock & Land, with a special interest in irrigation issues. I completed my cadetship, with the Age, in 1980. Over my career, I've worked for ABC radio news (Mt Isa, Qld) and at provincial and suburban newspapers.
I'm a general reporter with Stock & Land, with a special interest in irrigation issues. I completed my cadetship, with the Age, in 1980. Over my career, I've worked for ABC radio news (Mt Isa, Qld) and at provincial and suburban newspapers.
