CCNF at the 2019 Futurity

I can’t quite say that the run out and back to Kansas City, MO for the annual Futurity Show & Sale has gotten to be old hat. The simple fact is that there are just too many variables with a team of 40ish alpacas, two trailers, and 46+ hours of drive time to take anything for granted. That said, the Love’s Travel Centers along that route are all starting to look kind of familiar. So either we’ve done this a few times now…or I was a long-haul trucker in a past life?

Like the drive out to Denver for the National Show in March, there was again winter nastiness in the forecast [A point of order: our older son who has studied meteorology in college claims that the term “bomb cyclone” is completely made up. Something most likely coined by the same wind-up and click-bait merchants who felt it would add to their prestige and bottom line by turning the hyperbole up to 11 and naming winter storms. Rant over.], though the weather gods were kind enough to have said storm (which didn’t really ever have a name anyway…ok, my rant wasn’t really quite over) bend just north of eastern KS and western MO, so that we pulled into the American Royal that Thursday before the Futurity with little more than a few stray showers having troubled us. If anything, we were in fact the beneficiaries of the front line north of that area, as the temperatures steadily dropped throughout the morning. That was ideal, as laying out show mats and bedding for 40+ animals on the otherwise slippery surface inside the venue at the American Royal, is a process that takes at least several hours for the 2 people silly enough (that would be yours truly and, as ever, our dear friend and victim, Dave Serino) to volunteer for such a thing. Even though we had fans keeping the animals onboard the trailers comfortable, the difference between 55 and 80 degrees (which we had faced on check-in day in 2018), is immense to an alpaca with almost 11 months of fleece growth on them. Thankfully, by early afternoon all of the animals were safely in their show pens inside the American Royal, with hay and water. There was a brief celebratory beer-break, before trudging into the joys of setting up the electrical for the two fans which hang in every pen but by late afternoon most everything, minus our show display itself, was done. The animals had all even been color-checked with no real surprises. As tradition dictated, it was margarita time.

Fridays and Saturdays at the Futurity are generally viewed by us as the calm before the storm (which-shall-not-be-named), a chance to catch up with friends and other fellow breeders who we might not otherwise speak with regularly. While the Futurity Sale itself, one half of the weekend’s titular festivities, takes place on Saturday and does require some mental energy on our part, knowing the size of our show string has always had a way of sharpening the mind as the auction winds down early on Saturday evening and the show itself starts to loom on the horizon. I won’t go into the play by play of the Futurity Sale itself other than to say that the auction was generally very strong with some really nice animals and multiple bidders on the vast majority of lots: in short, the elements needed for a successful livestock auction. It’s not rocket science really. For our part, we were thrilled to sell both of our consigned females to highly respected and established breeding programs! You can read more about that here.

Perhaps most importantly, from Dave’s and my perspective, was the arrival mid-morning Saturday of reinforcements in the form of the rest of the human CCNF show team: Jen, our son Max, and our beloved friend, Susan Monat. Though there can be no doubt that by the time our two trucks and trailers were fully loaded and headed back east around 6PM on Monday evening that we knew that we had all worked that weekend, logistics side – the act of actually showing 42 critters with 5 potential handlers (really 4 handlers, with Sue acting as pit-boss/runner) in only 2 show rings, is not so taxing in and of itself. It’s really the set-up and the take down that are the killers. Pulling out urine and manure-soaked show mats after five days of use before finally heading home, has always been the final gift of the Futurity. At least this year with Jen, Max, and Sue not catching a flight back to Boston until Tuesday morning, we all got to partake of that lovely post-show tradition together. You know, it was like trust-falling! Nothing brings a team together like folding nasty show mats after a long weekend.

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As for our results at the Futurity show itself? I’ll let the listings below speak for themselves for the most part, though the crib-notes version is that we accomplished what we had set out to do. Though the Futurity is by design an event that celebrates the potency of Herdsires, it is also worth noting the genetic power of one of our most important foundation females: CCNF Pristine. The daughter of CCNF Archangel and famed import, PPPeruvian Prestige, Pristine has quietly been at the apex of our white female herd for years now. At this show, she not only was the dam of both of the white male Champions, Priam and Perceus, but also the granddam of the Best Bred & Owned Female, Priya (who was last seen as the Light Supreme Female in Denver), and the great-granddam of the RC white female, Khiara. It was in fact the knowledge that we had never before had the chance — because of quirks in the breeding calendar — to breed Pristine with our old friend and Herdsire, Snowmass Elite Legend, that was quite literally a leading reason for bringing EL back into the fold here some 2 years ago. If Perceus, the first cria Pristine has had sired by EL, continues on the developmental curve that we think he is on — one which was followed by the majority of his maternal siblings — he alone will have made his sire’s reacquisition (we nowadays co own Elite Legend with the lovely folks at Tierra Prometida) a worthwhile endeavor.

A brief aside: while the AOA National Show has in recent years again raised it’s stature throughout the industry, primarily by wisely positioning itself in the Goldilocks fleece month of March (staple lengths are not too short but not too long either, they are just right), the Futurity remains, at least for now, arguably the most important show on the national alpaca calendar. There is good reason why most of the top breeding programs — of every size — in the country spend thousands of dollars to travel to KC to compete against one another. Simply put, that logo and the reputation that the Futurity’s Breeder and Herdsire of the Year awards carry with them speak for themselves: a legitimate and previously unequaled cachet that has been rightly earned over the past 2 decades. Long may that remain the case.

And just like that, our spring show season came to a conclusion. Though there were obviously ups and downs, it’s hard to see the past 6 weeks as much less than an unqualified success. We have officially gotten the road-tripping bug out of our system for now and it’s safe to say that in most future years, I suspect that one cross-country haul will be deemed sufficient. We shall see. Happy trails everyone, we’ll see you next on the halter show circuit come this fall in Syracuse! Time now here for shorn alpacas, the Parade of Champions auction, fleece shows, breeding season, and the much anticipated birth class of 2019!

Follow me on Twitter @CCNFalpacas

Cas-Cad-Nac Farm LLC – Championships & 1st Place Finishes, The 2019 Futurity Show, Kansas City, MO

CCNF Valyria (CCNF Moonbeam x CCNF Elixir) – Judges’ Choice Huacaya Female

CCNF Lyanna (CCNF Dorianna x Snowmass Matrix Majesty) – Champion Fawn Huacaya Female

CCNF Idris (CCNF Mechlin x CCNF Centurion) – Champion Light Huacaya Male

CCNF Valyria (CCNF Moonbeam x CCNF Elixir) – Champion White Huacaya Female

CCNF Priam (CCNF Pristine x Snowmass Matrix Majesty) – Champion White Huacaya Male

CCNF Kalil (Gemstate’s Kashmira x Snowmass Elite Legend) – Best Bred & Owned Huacaya Male

CCNF Priya (CCNF Prestige x MFI’s & KVR’s Mint Mo Money) – Best Bred & Owned Huacaya Female

CCNF Eternal Revel (CCNF Eternal Rose x CCNF Dreadnought) – Reserve Champion Fawn Huacaya Male

CCNF Khiara (CCNF Khione x CCNF Sucrose) – Reserve Champion White Huacaya Female

CCNF Perceus (CCNF Pristine x Snowmass Elite Legend) – Reserve Champion White Huacaya Male

CCNF Nyaden (CCNF Nymph x CCNF Centurion) – Reserve Champion Multicolored Huacaya Male

CCNF Valentina (CCNF Couture x CCNF Dreadnought) – 1st Place, Light Brown Juvenile Huacaya Females

CCNF Eternal Revel (CCNF Eternal Rose x CCNF Dreadnought) – 1st Place, Medium Fawn Juvenile Huacaya Males

CCNF Lyanna (CCNF Dorianna x Snowmass Matrix Majesty) – 1st Place, Dark Fawn Yearling Huacaya Females

CCNF Bifrost (CCNF Mechlin x CCNF Centurion) – 1st Place, Beige Juvenile Huacaya Males

CCNF Idris (CCNF Mechlin x CCNF Centurion) – 1st Place, Beige Yearling Huacaya Males

CCNF Magnar (CCNF Magdalena x CCNF Elixir) – 1st Place, Light 2 Year Old Huacaya Males

CCNF Lucretia (Delicate Lace x CCNF Elixir) – 1st Place, Light Fawn Yearling Huacaya Females

CCNF Khiara (CCNF Khione x CCNF Sucrose) – 1st Place, White Juvenile Huacaya Females

CCNF Perceus (CCNF Pristine x Snowmass Elite Legend) – 1st Place, White Juvenile Huacaya Males

CCNF Snowking (CCNF Elizabeth x MFI’s & KVR’s Mint Mo Money) – 1st Place, White Yearling Huacaya Males

CCNF Priam (CCNF Pristine x Snowmass Matrix Majesty) – 1st Place, White 2 Year Old Huacaya Males

CCNF Valyria (CCNF Moonbeam x CCNF Elixir) – 1st Place, White Yearling Huacaya Females

CCNF Nyaden (CCNF Nymph x CCNF Centurion) – 1st Place, Patterned Yearling Huacaya Males

CCNF Eclipse (CCNF Moonbeam x CCNF Elixir) – 1st Place, Bred & Owned Dark Juvenile Huacaya Females

CCNF Rorden (CCNF Reality x CCNF Dreadnought) – 1st Place, Bred & Owned Dark Juvenile Huacaya Males

CCNF Archer (CCNF Amanda x CCNF Elixir) – 1st Place, Bred & Owned Dark Yearling Huacaya Males

CCNF Paramour (CCNF Prima Majesty x CCNF Elixir) – 1st Place, Bred & Owned Dark Yearling Huacaya Females

CCNF Kalil (Gemstate’s Kashmira x Snowmass Elite Legend) – 1st Place, Bred & Owned Light Juvenile Huacaya Males

CCNF Priya (CCNF Prestige x MFI’s & KVR’s Mint Mo Money) – 1st Place, Bred & Owned Light Juvenile Huacaya Females

CCNF Rosalva (CCNF Eternal Rose x CCNF Elixir) – 1st Place, Bred & Owned Light Yearling Huacaya Females

CCNF Sub-Stantial (CCNF Prestige x Snowmass Sub-Zero) – 1st Place, Bred & Owned Light Yearling Huacaya Male

CCNF Angiolo (CCNF Bellisima x Snowmass Matrix Majesty) – 1st Place, Bred & Owned Light 2 Year Old Huacaya Male