Winning nothing new for Hereford champion

More than three decades later, an exhibitor brings his family to the Hereford conference to continue winning

OLDS, Alta. — The last time Canada hosted the world Hereford conference in Calgary Bryan Latimer was 15 years old.

The family, which operated Remitall Cattle Co. of Olds, won premier exhibitor and a few division awards at that event.

This time round, at the 16th world forum, he and his daughter, Emily, led the grand champion polled bull, Remitall West Game Day ET 74Y, to the grand championship circle at the open show July 17 and the junior show a day earlier.

The junior program was not offered at the 1976 show, so he competed against adults in the open event.

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His parents, Louis and Jean Latimer, encouraged an early start.

“As soon as you could go out and not get stepped on, you were out,” he said.

At 16, Emily was raised with the same work ethic and has been leading cattle in the ring since she was five.

“I get a little nervous before, but once you are out, it’s OK,” she said.

Her younger brothers, Zachary and Isaac, showed the reserve grand champion female and a division winner, respectively, at the junior show.

The champion bull will become an artificial insemination stud after the show. It is co-owned with Craig and Debbie Bacon of Arkansas and Glengrove Herefords of Missouri.

Other champions at the open show are no strangers to the winner’s circle.

Grant and Annette Hirsche of High River, Alta., had the grand champion horned bull, which they own with Will and Sonja Vander Griff of Colorado and Upstream Ranch in Nebraska.

They were not in the Hereford business when Canada last hosted the world conference but have attended similar events in Australia, Argentina and Denmark, where Grant was a guest speaker.

They brought 25 head to this show.

The week before the big event, the ranch was host to kids from around the world who were put to work preparing the cattle for the junior and open shows.

Their daughter, Kelsey, is still active in the junior program and won reserve grand champion bull at the Bonanza show.

The champion bull was a grandson of a Hirsche bull named Neon, whose offspring is found in 30 countries.

However, most of the bulls at the show had equally good credentials.

“There are hundreds of bulls out there and most of them have ancestors that have done something. These are the cream of the crop,” said Grant.

Lance Leachman of Big Gully Farm near Maidstone, Sask., won the grand champion horned female competition with a five-year-old cow that was a half sister to the 2010 Canadian Western Agribition supreme champion.

The Leachman family, which shows horned and polled cattle, had not shown this female since it was a heifer.

However, this spring a good looking calf at side made Leachman reconsider and he entered it along with 11 others from the family show string.

Bill Biglieni was a bachelor in 1976, working for Klondike Farms in Manitoba. He was determined to return to the 2012 version with his own cattle.

“There was no way I would miss this show,” he said.

This time round he and his wife, Nancy, won the national polled reserve female, a cow they have in partnership with Winchester Cattle Co. of Ste Ambrose, Man.

The company purchased the female in Biglieni’s second internet heifer sale for $10,400 in the fall of 2010. This cow’s mother and full brother were Agribition champions last year.

“The cow has a winning record,” he said.

All grand champions from this show automatically qualify for the Alberta beef supreme competition at Edmonton’s Farmfair and the RBC beef supreme at Canadian Western Agribition.