EDMONTON – A pair of black Simmentals owned by Rancier Farms of Killam, Alta., made Farmfair history by winning supreme champion bull and female.
It’s the first time since the Supreme Show of Champions began in 2002 that a Simmental has won both top bull and female at the event. It is also the first time one family has won both honours in the same year.
“I’m ecstatic. It’s unbelievable,” said Garth Rancier after the judge slapped the big black bull, SS Ebonys Intuition 802, indicating it was the winner over 11 breeds of cattle.
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Rancier walked his bull past the other breed champions shaking hands with the owners and accepting hugs as friends and family rushed from the stands.
“People at the shows are like another family,” he said.
A few minutes earlier, Rancier’s cow and calf, TLG Flirtin With You, was named champion female of 12 breeds in the final show.
“My heart is pounding,” said Rancier, who also accepted the keys to two 2009 Dodge 4X4 trucks for winning two supreme champions.
“I’d like to thank Dodge,” he said.
Rancier and his wife, Angela, bought the bull last year from a sale in Louisville, Kentucky.
They’d seen five full siblings at different events and liked what they saw. The couple then made a trip to Iowa to see the mother and knew it was the kind of animal they wanted to build their herd on.
“As soon as we saw her we knew we needed her son,” he said.
It was a similar story with the cow. They bought it as a calf after its mother was a winner at the World Simmental Congress.
Their winning female cow is bred to the winning bull and is expected to calve next March.
“It’ll be interesting to see what happens.”
Rancier said the cow will go into the farm’s flushing program to produce multiple embryos for the family’s 60 head purebred and percentage black Simmental herd on their central Alberta cattle and grain farm.
Rancier said he starts working with the show cattle in the summer to ready them for the circuit. Both animals will go to Regina’s Canadian Western Agribition at the end of the month.
A black Simmental bull calf owned by Mader Ranches of Carstairs, Alta., won grand champion bull calf during the Legends of the Fall competition.
Ryley Mader said the calf is their top bull calf, Mader Black Ironman, and has stood out since it was born on their southern Alberta ranch.
A Black Angus heifer from Hamilton Farms, HF Echo 49U, won grand champion heifer during the Legends of the Fall competition.
Gail Hamilton said the heifer comes from a long line of champion animals that have raised winning show cattle.
“She’s been the pick of anyone who’s come to our farm or our stall. We could have sold her 10 times over,” she said.
