aj.....Kenmar President 26A was known by the nickname Maxi- Brute and Don and Pat Stout did walk him as a herd sire for many years. It would be interesting to know if they still have semen from him. He was a son of Kinnaber Leader 9th and out of a very powerful Kenmar Mayflower dam. She was an incredible cow and she probably would be cloned by someone if she was alive today.
The Kenmar herd was owned by Harvey Fulton and Sons at Birtle, Manitoba. The herd is still in operation and now is run by Harvey's two sons. It is a large herd with 500 -600 cows. Most are commercial now but there still are some very good purebred Shorthorns there. Harvey just passed away last year and was in his mid 90s when he died. He was still checking cows and feeding one group of cows right up until his death... and he knew each and every cow in the herd. When Harvey was about 80 years of age, he lost his driver's licence. This did not stop him from driving to the farm every day. He simply purchased all the land between the town, where he lived, and the farm.... and he made his own road on his own property so that he could drive to and from the farm.
The Kenmar herd started many of the leading cow families in the US and Canada today. Many of the female lines in the Barry Jordan herd( Waukaru) originated from females Barry purchased at Fulton's. The Myrtles and Myrtle Bo's all started at Kenmar as did the Mayflower, Duchess, lily, Dora and Daisy lines, to name a few. Harvey Fulton used some great herd sires in the 70s and 80s. Pleasant dawn Seal 2nd and Kinnaber Leader 9th were two of the sires he used and ABS leased both these bulls. The Kinnaber herd was owned by Bob and Wayne Gordon at Souris, Manitoba. Bob Gordon purchased TPS Coronet Leader 21st in the 1962 American Polled Congress where he stood last in class because he was the biggest bull in class. Bob Gordon dispersed his Shorthorn herd in the late 70s and then was one of the original founders of Bar 5 Simmentals at Douglas, Manitoba. Bar 5 was founded by 3 Shorthorn breeders and 1 Polled Hereford breeder and was one of the great Simmental establishments for many years.
It is interesting that you mention the bull Ready Go. I purchased Ready Go in Louisville, KY where he was the Supreme Champion and record selling bull at the American Polled Congress, in 1973. He was used here for many years and I sold him to Gus Lippert as a 9 year old bull. I think he was still breeding cows there when he dispersed his herd, and I heard that Ready Go was still breeding cows at 14 years of age. It is now 35 years since I purchased Ready Go but I still sell 50 to 100 vials of his semen each year. Many Canadian breeders still use him on their heifers as he was very easy calving. He was homozygous polled and his daughters were legendary females with perfect udders and lots of milk. A Ready Go son topped a production sale here in Saskatchewan this fall. We have sold Ready Go semen to Argentina, Brazil, Uraguay, Australia, South Africa as well as USA and Canada. The sale to South Africa was interesting, as at the time, the South African government only allowed their citizens to take a maximum of $2000 from the country at any time. The South African breeder wanted to purchase 400 straws, so he had to figure out how he was going to get the money out of the country to pay us. He had a wife in South Africa, as well as a girl friend in London, another girlfriend in Los Angeles, and yet another in Vancouver BC. He had each of these women carry money out of South Africa and send it to us.
Ready Go was a bull that had perfect feet and actually came out of pasture in better shape than he went in. He was a bull that would only breed a cow once and then never look at her again. He just about drove me crazy as I would see cows in heat when doing pasture checks and he would be laying in the shade. He had tremendous semen quality and for many years his semen was used as a comparison with all sires collected at Alta Genetics. Last fall I flushed a cow to Ready Go and I told my ET vet to check the semen as it was 35 years old. He said it was one of the best semen samples he had ever checked.
As far as EPDs are concerned, I really want to believe they have some value, but I have lost all faith in them after some of the data that has been calculated in recent months. I see nothing that makes much sense right now. I have full brothers that go from +8 to +32 for WW EPD. This makes no sense and there are many other examples where you simply cannot make any sense out of the numbers. Hopefully, this can be corrected soon.