Photo of Sugar Ray

Found this pic and thought he still looks impressive. Sugar Ray

Really like him in most of his mature pics. This one not so much.

Ahhh!  The good old days.  You just couldn't get them tall enough.  Judging was so easy back then.  Just put the tallest one in first and go from there.  The best thing about those old Chis was their quick feet.  (if there really was a good thing about them)

The worst thing was having to stand on a bale of straw to clip the toplines. But, since it was before everyone used chips, there were plenty of bales laying around! 

They were already headed down in frame when Sugar Ray was at his peak.  He worked best on real thick halfblood Maine cows.  When his calves were winning Houston they were 56" or a little less.

;D  OMG

I'm glad the 80's are in the history books!! 
When my sisters and I were all in 4-H at the same time and showing calves, ours were still too short for the 80's style, so
Dad actually went out and AIed some of our old commercial Heinz 57 cows to some of the hot bulls of the day and we got a Sugar Ray once--
one of the worst steers we ever fed... never did grow right and efficiency was awful-- took  long time to get him to "finish".  Never did show him-- ended up at the sale barn when we got him as finished as we could or maybe we ate him-- I can't remember for sure now, 
Does anyone remember Yuma?
EF

at collection

He sure was steep in his skeletal design especially off the front end. I know some clubby bulls go back to him and was known as the bull to put a "look" in his calves. I still question if we are on the right track in selecting these show steers for maximum performance and profit.

Good Ol Sugar Ray...Thanks for the pictures!

Telos said:

He sure was steep in his skeletal design especially off the front end. I know some clubby bulls go back to him and was known as the bull to put a "look" in his calves. I still question if we are on the right track in selecting these show steers for maximum performance and profit.

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I know you were involved with Chi's and saw their carcasses. I saw 3 years of High % chi crosses and their ribeye's did not stand up welll to 1"/100lbs.  Still they were very pretty when they hit. For the smaller ones that were available back in the day, they would stand up good after people get over the wide stance no quarter monopoly look. Ildeno did very nicely on Amerifax influenced cattle.  Some of them you wouldn't know they were half bloods.

The steers people seem to like today seem to be like short polish or Greek men.