Grand Drive line-ups

I've noticed a difference in grand drives at Indiana and Illinois as compared to Ohio.

Ohio puts all crossbred division winners in the Final Drive where it appears that Indy and Illinois just put the Crossbred champion in.

I feel the Ohio way builds a little more suspense as compared to the Crossbred champs being the de facto champs in a majority of years.

Jive Turkey said:

I've noticed a difference in grand drives at Indiana and Illinois as compared to Ohio.

Ohio puts all crossbred division winners in the Final Drive where it appears that Indy and Illinois just put the Crossbred champion in.

I feel the Ohio way builds a little more suspense as compared to the Crossbred champs being the de facto champs in a majority of years.

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Excellent observation, and I couldn't agree more.  Everyone knew who was going to win the Indiana State Fair as soon as the Cross Bred champion was picked.

I think that the other thing this does is gets the best cattle into the top 5 or 7 or however many the given show picks.  Often times when only the Grand and Reserve Cross goes to the drive, you end up with 3rd on down being cattle that were clearly not in the running in terms of the true top 5. 

Our State Fair picks the top 2 only, so it doesn't matter in our case.  However, all Cross Bred division champions and reserves go back into the Champion Drive.