Wednesday, November 6, 2013

Yellow Rose Goat Show 2013

The girls and I traveled a few weekends ago to Denison, Texas, for the second annual Yellow Rose of Texas Miniature Silky Fainting Goat Show.  Once again, the girls were primarily responsible for showing goats, while my job was to photograph the winners.  Last year the show was in November, which meant we drove in the dark to get to the show.  This year we arrived before nightfall and got to enjoy the scenery on the way.  The girls were impressed by Lake Texhoma's size.  

The girls were excited to stay in the same hotel this year, especially Gracie, who remembered the pool with great fondness.  Unfortunately, she forgot to pack a suit, and the only suits available at wally world were snow suits!  This year the girls missed a day of school to come to the show, so Maggie worked diligently on her homework (plugged into her ever-present MP3 player) while Gracie settled in with a graphic novel.  
 

The next morning we got up bright and early and headed to the barns where we had goats that needed to be beautified.  We were not Nana and Granddad's only recruits - several friends were on hand to help as well.  Here, Gracie and Bethany brush out Winter's Dream, a Sr. Doe:


Apparently they did  a good job, as she won her third Grand Champion ribbon and is now a Master Champion.

Here Maggie uses her "goat whisperer" techniques to soothe Love Bug, another Sr. Doe.


While the girls were readying the goats, Granddad and I smoothed out the backdrop for the photos and covered some signs above with towels.  Granddad wanted to be sure I had a subject for my test photos.  


Pretty soon it was 9:00 and time to start the show.  The littlest does go first.  Here's Maggie with Gidget.  


Each handler takes their goat and they walk around the arena, keeping the goat between themselves and the judge.  The goats are judged on conformation, hair coat, how they walk, and how they look.  Well, it's really way more complicated than that, but I didn't read the whole rule book.  I'm just the photographer, after all.  


Once the judges make their decisions, they line the goats up in order of placement and they talk about the qualities of each goat.  Then they get their pretty ribbons if they win!

Here's Maggie with our first big winner of the day, Sanibel!  She's a Reserve Grand Champion (2nd place) Junior Doe.

Only the big winners get their photo taken, so I have plenty of time to visit with the goats between awards.  This was one of my favorite little goats, although he was too small to be a big winner at this show.  He's still got time to grow though.  I called him Mr. Bangs, although that wasn't his name.  He was with a different breeder who was a first-time attender at this show.  


He got good points for facial hair!

This buck reminded me of the goats in the story "The Billy Goats Gruff,"  because he just looks the part!  He did very well based on his conformation, even though he wasn't as silky as some.


These are more what you expect to see when you see a full-grown Miniature Silky Fainting goat:



Both of these goats won Best of Show (there were four shows this weekend) and are in the running for Goat of the Year.  Overall Randolph's Mini Hoof Farm did well at the show - we had plenty of ribbons to decorate our booth!


It rained pretty hard on Saturday, and I took some videos in the arena with the hope that there would be a big clap of thunder that would make all the goats faint and that I would have a viral video in the making, but no such luck!  By the time things wrapped up on Saturday we were tuckered out and ready to head home. I I guess that's another successful goat show for the books!

No comments: