NAAS Recap Part #2: Debutantes and Wily Veterans
As I pointed out a couple of days ago, going to alpaca shows with high expectations can be an exercise in futility and disappointment some times. What you think you have in your show pens and what the judges think you have are not always the same thing. Let us also not forget that particularly this time of year with the extra long staple lengths, the environment (no rain vs. too much rain) can also wreak havoc on the fleeces of show animals. It’s just one more variable over which one has almost no control! For the 2012 NAAS our 30 member show string was split literally down the middle with 15 older animals (12 yearlings with 3 token 2 year olds) and 15 rookies, all juveniles born in the summer or fall of 2011.
Admittedly with last year’s predominant birth theme here being “white male,” the vast majority of our colored animals were of the older set. Thankfully those older colored animals more than held their ground at this show, though more on that in a second. Amongst our juveniles there was obviously young Elixir (whose story was told earlier this week), though he was also joined by several other little ones whom we also rate very highly: his paternal siblings Jesusa, Hyperion, and Omnia Sol, along with Agamemnon (CP Stacey’s latest riff on the Archangel line), Agave (CCNF Ultraviolet’s maternal kid brother), Precipitous (a Precocious son out of one of our few remaining import girls, 6P Cambria), Victor (CCNF Silken Damask’s first cria), Prestige (SuperNova’s last daughter to ever be born and CCNF Pristine’s first cria ever), Confectious (a gorgeous little Precocious girl out of our “Sugar” line), Silken Fire (Tanzania’s younger maternal sister), and last but certainly not least, Solara (CCNF Solano’s first offspring). Did they all rip it up and come home with blue ribbons and banners? Well of course not. In fact we even took the gate a couple of times and given the way some of the fleeces in question were looking last weekend, we really had no argument on those occasions anyway. C’est las vie.
What this show string did do though, as we had hoped, was to be in the mix the vast majority of the time: if they weren’t winning blues they were often not far behind with a 2nd or a 3rd. No shame there at all. One of the quiet backstories amidst our weekend’s Elixir-themed brouhaha was the success that our 2 yearling Cameron daughters, Tanzania (black females) and her sister Ultraviolet (brown females), had in each winning their respective color Championships. Cameron, whom we co own with Emelise Alpacas, doesn’t honestly see nearly as much action in our breeding program as he deserves for the simple reason that most of our colored females are close family, so it was especially nice to see some of his kids get recognition for their quality. For Tanzy this was in fact her 5th banner (2 RC, 3 C) since first joining our string last year at the same time. In Ultraviolet’s case, though she had made it into a Championship class before, this was her first time collecting a purple rectangle. Of course for both of those females we would be remiss were we to not also credit their amazing dams: Andean Silk (Tanzania) and Marguerite (UV) who played just as big of a part as the Camster. In any case you combine all of the results above with Reserve Championships for our beloved Invictus (Light Males behind the curious little fart, see picture below) and our yearling Ring of Fire daughter, La Vie en Rose (Fawn Females), and we had nothing to complain about whatsoever. You win some, you lose some, you drink Stella in cans some!
To cap it all off at the end of the day Sunday, the two Get of Sire entries which we were a part of, Snowmass Elite Legend (with Tripping Gnome Farm Alpacas) and TKO’s King of the Ladies (with Hilltop Alpacas), finished 1st and 2nd respectively in that huge class. The Kinger Get was made up of CCNF Agamemnon, along with his brothers Hilltop’s King Me and Hilltop’s Sirius Style. The victorious EL Get had Elixir (did you see that coming?), Hyperion, and their paternal brother TGF Snow Legend. If there was any doubt prior to last weekend, consistent results proved that the offspring from those two superlative Herdsires had officially arrived in more ways than one. All things considered, the 2012 NAAS was 72 hours very well spent!
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