Friday 13 March 2015

Satisfied?

Satisfied (adjective)
Having achieved satisfaction, as of one's goal: content, fulfilled, gratified, happy. 


I have been busy since the BAS National Show, it has been a busy week. I have been physically active with one thing and another but I have been properly, mentally active, a lot. I have been thinking about alpacas probably too much since we got back from the show. Really, too much, an unhealthy amount of time has been spent thinking about fleece, conformation, colour, breeding and all things camelid. I am exhausted. 

First to the show. 
It was an absolute triumph. The show was organised very professionally, it ran like clockwork, the judging was, as far as I can make out, impeccable and the show finished early, enabling everyone to get away on time. Faultless. 
Congratulations to the organising team. The BAS has a show that is going from strength to strength and is something to be very proud of. I took this picture early on Saturday before it filled up, and it did fill up very well indeed. 


We had taken a team of five from the mighty Patou and we came away with five rosettes. 

The show format was different to previous years in that Saturday was 'ladies day' with all the female classes and Sunday was macho time, with all the male classes. It was a popular format and I hope it will be repeated.

So, Saturday was Patou Pinot's big moment in the junior black females. She just snuck in with a sixth place rosette so we were up and running. The black female championship was taken by the Mighty Inca, who seemed to win almost everything they entered (well they should do!) despite creating their own strong opposition.


The following day, with a slightly thick head after a late night was the turn of the boys.
First up for us was Patou Wasimba in the intermediate grey male class. I have to say that Wasimba is one of the best looking alpacas that we have bred and he seems to be getting better and better. He was up against strong opposition and secured the third place rosette for us. 


We then moved onto the black male classes and some very strong opposition. Patou Spitfire was up in the juniors and took a fifth place rosette. I can't have been pleased at the time as I don't appear to have a picture of that. Maybe I was knitting or something.

The next class entry for us was Patou Viking in the intermediate black male class. Before we left home Viking, standing in the sunshine, looked fabulous. He looked great going into the trailer with his travelling companions Wasimba and Tsar. 

When he came out of the trailer in Telford, Viking looked like he had been in the washing machine on a slow spit. Tsar, had clearly decided to molest Viking for four hours and then just to make things worse when put in our pen he continued to molest him, a lot, and he wasn't being very gentle. As a result Viking looked like he had been in a spit and slobber fight and Tsar had to be placed in his own individual pen. So when Viking was awarded fourth place I was genuinely delighted, in fact it made my day.


That meant that there was only one class left for us. Adult brown male. My favourite class. My nervous class. My twitchy, itchy, can't sit still class. It was Tsar Tsar Gabor time.

Did he behave himself? No, as usual he was a complete turd in the ring. In fact he took an instant disliking to the AstroTurf ring and walked as if he was on some seriously strong mind-bending drugs. I honestly thought he was stoned.  
However, he was awarded second place which I was pleased with. He was certainly the brownest in the class, but let's not get me on the subject of  'proper browns' please!


There were some great results at the show, particularly the Mighty Popham who seemd to be buried under a mountain of sashes even before they swooped in for Supreme Champion with Popham Havengore. In fact, with my SWAG hat on, I must say that SWAG members seemed to have a great show. 

Personally, as it says at the head of this blog I suppose I must settle for being satisfied with our results. It has, as I said earlier, given me a great deal to think about. We have the Futurity in two weeks time and the team will be bolstered by another three juniors. We will see how they get on. 

The real hard work will begin when the shows are over. We need to improve and for that to happen we need to look far and wide.

5 comments:

Rosemary said...

Congratulations - sounds good to me! I would have liked to have seen you knitting - a mighty fine sight that would have been!

Unknown said...

Glad that you enjoyed the show Mark (we take heed!) Six rosettes for six entries, surely that is success! Especially pleased that Tsar did well :)

Gary said...

Thanks for the kind comments Mark and well done to the Mighty Patou. Good luck at the Futurity

Apple Vale Alpacas said...

Well done Mark, great summary!

Debbie, Barnacre Alpacas said...

Fantastic result, well done, Wasimba looks great.

I'm with you on the proper brown thing too!!