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cowhand-68 said:

If he didnt like the calf he should have kept his mouth shut.

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if you didn't like what the judge said, you should have kept your mouth shut.

you could have asked him later with an open mind for some specifics with an attitude to listen. 

having papers really doesn't mean anything on it's own.

cowhand-68 said:

We were recently at a show and the judge said my daughters heifer didnt fit the breed. Isnt that the job of the assocation of the breed ????? She has a set of papers and she is a bred owned. If he didnt like the calf he should have kept his mouth shut.

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This part cracks me up because that's his job. That's why he's there. To give his opinion rather you agree with it or not.

Just because the calf has papers doesn't mean anything. The champion simbrah at houston a few years ago got her papers pulled because she was like half maine, but she had papers at the time of the show so does that make her a simbrah?

What he probably meant though was that the calf doesn't have the characteristics of other calves in the breed. For example, a trashy fronted shorthorn. Shorthorns are known as clean fronted animals so wouldn't you agree that a trashy one doesn't "fit the breed"?

It used to be that judges selected animals based on breed character versus the ideal of the specific breed.  Today we have almost completely done away with breed character.

I felt the same way last year at our fair when in the showmanship competition he gave champ showman to a girl who couldnt handel her animal at all! it was jumping other animals and whenever it started acting up she would just drop the halter and let him take off. i had to catch him once and the judge had to grab him once and she hardly could stand next to the animal and she won because the judge loved the animal so much! he gave her grand champ animal and then showmanship and predicted her top for carcass. It was so frustrating cause i got third and the girl who got second had a disability and had someone showing with her.  I just was dumbfounded when i came in third.

There is an old saying "Sour grapes make bitter wine".

cowhand-68 said:

We were recently at a show and the judge said my daughters heifer didn't fit the breed. Isn't that the job of the association of the breed ????? She has a set of papers and she is a bred owned. If he didn't like the calf he should have kept his mouth shut.

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Just a forewarning...some folks are brutally honest.

Although you are frustrated with the outcome of the show, this would have been a great time to approach the judge to find what exactly he/she may have intended. I know I have not always liked what feedback we received but we took that feedback and attempted to improve our breeding program. I have a heifer in particular that a few judges just didn't like. Very frustrating. I thought she was super fancy and very correct but very moderate. A very well known cattle person judged a show and he commented how fancy and correct this heifer was and how he liked her moderation. Now we had been through several shows by the time we got to him. What that judge said meant the world to me because he has one of the best programs in the country. It removed all the prior criticism we had received. So be patient ask questions and buck up. they all can't be winners and remember its ONE judge One day.

OH Breeder said:

cowhand-68 said:

We were recently at a show and the judge said my daughters heifer didn't fit the breed. Isn't that the job of the association of the breed ????? She has a set of papers and she is a bred owned. If he didn't like the calf he should have kept his mouth shut.

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Just a forewarning...some folks are brutally honest.

Although you are frustrated with the outcome of the show, this would have been a great time to approach the judge to find what exactly he/she may have intended. I know I have not always liked what feedback we received but we took that feedback and attempted to improve our breeding program. I have a heifer in particular that a few judges just didn't like. Very frustrating. I thought she was super fancy and very correct but very moderate. A very well known cattle person judged a show and he commented how fancy and correct this heifer was and how he liked her moderation. Now we had been through several shows by the time we got to him. What that judge said meant the world to me because he has one of the best programs in the country. It removed all the prior criticism we had received. So be patient ask questions and buck up. they all can't be winners and remember its ONE judge One day.

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What he said

How times have changed!  When we first started showing Shorthorns in the mid-60's, they were criticized as a breed for having "trashy" fronts and gobs around the tail head.  Now we are known as a clean fronted breed!

I guess I am "old school" on yet another issue. I am a firm believer in judging both females and males for breed character( in purebred classes).   Breed character does change over time, and there was a time when breed associations determined what it was and they selected judges that they felt understood what they wanted these qualities to be within the breed. I believe that if you are judging a set of Simmental or Angus heifers for example you really need to be conscience of breed type in making your placings.
I have no problem with any judge who expresses his opinion providing he explains his reasons why he placed a heifer wherever he did. I have more problems with judges who place a class and either give poor reasons or use a bunch of"canned college "  reasons that make little sense. A judge should be allowed to express his point of view on any characteristic. Nobody has to agree with him on any set of heifers on any particular day. Just because a breed association as issued a regisrtration paper for an animal does not say anything about how she represents the particular breed. Years ago, breed associations used to take a bigger role in determining this and they had classifiers who travelled the country and classified cattle into catagories. Now they usually let the market place and the show judges determine if a female has breed character or not. I highly expect that there are probably less errors made with todays method of evaluating this. As far as the judge commenting on this,I believe it is his right to do so. He has been given the job of evaluating each animal from the tips of their toes upward. It is his day and his opinion only.

I did ask the judge and he said the heifer was not a pure breed. The funny part is he used the calf last year at the same show as res. champ..... Yes the judge has an opinion but stupid ones should be kept to themselves.

cowhand-68 said:

I did ask the judge and he said the heifer was not a pure breed. The funny part is he used the calf last year at the same show as res. champ..... Yes the judge has an opinion but stupid ones should be kept to themselves.

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once again, you are telling yourself what to do.  why don't you just have your own show?

I bet you had no problem with what the judge said about her last year, 

Sounds like she has changed since last year and she is no longer what he looks for in her breed.

We just got back from watching the steer show at the county fair last week, we did not have a dog in the fight for the first time in 10 years. I believe the judge got it right in every class and at the end, he did drive me up the wall using the same canned phrase over and over. "A nickle more" he must have used that phrase evaluating every calf after the 1st place calf and some times with the first place calf. He evaluated 85 head and must have you the phrase 170 times.

As far as judges each show is different and each and every judge has a different perspective or opinion. My kids jackpotted for 10 years and I think there was maybe a handfull of times I did not see the fault in the calf that the judge did, the rest of the time they were spot on, I may have not agreed with the placings all the time but what they saw as a fault was there. We have several shows here where you show twice in the same day in front of 2 different judges, It is amazing to see how different a class can be placed in a 30 minute time span, but the cream usually stays near the top.

My favorite off the wall reason of all times was " He's sound, balanced, well muscled, but his sheath is a little big for me" He placed 3rd out of 20 and that was where he belonged, it was just his reason for putting him there that cracked me up. He was way overpowered by some big time calves that went on to State or Denver to compete, that was why he was 3rd. We had a shorthorn steer win Reserve British at his first show and never won a class after that, the judge at the first show got it wrong not the other 8 that year.

@VC, we went to a little jackpot show one time years ago. We took 6 simmental, and there were only two others at the show. There wasn't much to say about them either. Literally. The best calf I was hauling was an absolute tank and won her division at Ft. Worth 2 weeks later. She stood second in class that day because she had "too much volume". It was no surprise when the family with the other two calves were at the same restaurant we went to with the judge afterwards. That is the only time I haven't been placed fairly.

to the show, I bet Ft.Worth helped you get over it in a hurry. We were never in it big enough for politics to get in our way, we got beat by better calves, and when we won we had a better calf. (not to say there weren't any politics, just when you're standing in 4 out of 20 the 1, 2, 3, calves got lined up by politics more than the rest of the calves) we may have placed higher a time or 2 just so they could bury one, but never felt like we got cheated.

knabe said:

cowhand-68 said:

I did ask the judge and he said the heifer was not a pure breed. The funny part is he used the calf last year at the same show as res. champ..... Yes the judge has an opinion but stupid ones should be kept to themselves.

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once again, you are telling yourself what to do.  why don't you just have your own show?

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You can kiss it. OH  I forgot you must be an cattle  EXPERT.

Yall dont get it. I dont mind getting beat by a better calf. We won our class. One of our other calves in the drive won Res. IM JUST SAYING THAT SOME OF THESE JUDGES SHOULD THINK BEFORE THEY SPEEK. JUST LIKE SOME OF YOU PEOPLE.

The judge was paid to speak, obviously someone valued his opinion, when was the last time someone paid for yours, that would make you a cattle expert like OH.

cowhand-68 said:

Yall dont get it. I dont mind getting beat by a better calf. We won our class. One of our other calves in the drive won Res. IM JUST SAYING THAT SOME OF THESE JUDGES SHOULD THINK BEFORE THEY SPEEK. JUST LIKE SOME OF YOU PEOPLE.

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you keep giving yourself advice you refuse to accept.  no one is perfect.  sometimes phrases or default slogans get used too much by judges.  to characterize them by the exception rather than their overall body of work and without them here to defend themselves which they wouldn't bother with anyway, is not really fair.

there are lots of people who refuse to visit or participate on these sites just because of what you are saying.  there really isn't a return on their investment of time to bother with the number of complaints that would arise from every show.  responding to all the complaints would take longer than the show itself.  who would pay for that?

get your judge card and start judging shows, generate some complaints and see how you deal with it.  probably no different i expect than the person you are complaining about.

you already took your judging reasons down from your first post which you should be standing by.

as for being an expert, can you please list the criteria for that?  all too often, we are eager to take the money from non-experts and laugh at them behind their back for paying too much, not showing the calf etc, but is exactly these dollars that drive the show industry.  realistically, if you take out the fake profit for show cattle, we probably couldn't fool as many people to participate and profit from them as we do.