The 19-year-old, who hails from the Manuka Gorge, is in his second year as a cadet at agricultural training farm Jeff Farm at Kaiwera. With his three working dogs and a horse as his tools of trade, he is relishing the experience.
From a farming background, Mr Heslop has long been interested in livestock and was given two Dorset Down ewe lambs by Waitahuna West stud breeder Min Bain in 2012.
They were originally going to be pet lambs but he ended up breeding from them and, in 2014, the Ritchie family gave him a two-tooth ewe from their Mt Watkins stud for a birthday present.
He now has a registered stud, called Mt Ridge, and 15 ewes. During the recent Dorset Down tour, he sold a ewe lamb for $900, which he described as "pretty cool".
As a young breeder he was grateful for all the support and encouragement he had received with his fledgling stud, including the help from Mr Bain, Mr Heslop said.
"Min has pretty much driven the whole thing."
When it came to his future plans, he "definitely" intended to go shepherding and he also might have an overseas stint. Eventually, he was keen to crank up the sheep stud and grow it to around 400 ewes, breeding and selling rams.
In the meantime, he was enjoying his time at Jeff Farm, particularly gaining help with his dogs from the likes of experienced dog triallists John Chittock — Jeff Farm’s manager — and head shepherd Michael Benton.
Plenty of time was spent in the training paddock and that paid off for Jake at last month’s Gore dog trials, where he won the maiden title in the straight hunt with his dog Ned — whom he got as a pup — with 87.5 points.
His first trial had been the local home trials at Waitahuna, where he campaigned an old huntaway which was "kind of everyone’s in the family", he said.
He enjoyed seeing the improvements made as a result of the time spent on training.
