I was part of Awesome-tailend of mark4, Traildriver (few times) and some others. Back then, fewr bulls were syndicated-and when they were-they got used on a much broader spectrum of types than they are today-Alot of these deals are owned by a very small circle of breeders who do business at the same places-and are in the show cattle business.So at best-they are not used on a very diverese cross section of cattle. I think alot of people have heard the heresay about phantom herds to prop up epds: or cattle with good numbers bringing alot of money at dispersals and just 'disappearing"-There have been MANY calves cut out of cows sired by or related to a very popular sire who "had" a BW epd of 2.5. In fact-hes behind alot of the popular cattle today-You are missing the point completely assuming that I think all syndicated bulls are bad yatta yatta-but thats a very convenient posistion to take. Maybe you could back a posistion on that by figuring out who kept the records. I'm only going on what I;ve seen, what alot of people with cattle have related to me through first hand experience-and the cattle we have had that share that type of breeding.I do hope that the trend to make Shorthorn cattle feasible again continues-in other words-the Red Demands,Canadian sired, Kieth Lauer-Jungels, Waukarus etc need to have some recognition at shows-even if the 8 month old calves showing against long yearlings arent as big-or "early maturing". O0