OLDS, Alta. Ñ Raymond Gonnet is a self-professed steer jockey who admits showing cattle is his favourite activity.
The 18 year old from Onoway, Alta., has been showing cattle since he was a 4-H member at the age of nine.
“I couldn’t see over the steer the first time I showed,” he said.
On April 9 he won the reserve champion prize money at the seventh annual Spring Classic steer and heifer show in Olds, Alta. He plans to take his Maine Anjou-Black Angus cross to the Calgary Stampede this summer to vie for a $10,000 prize.
Read Also
Feeder market adds New World screwworm risk premium
Feedlots contemplate the probability of Canadian border closing to U.S. feeder cattle if parasite found in United States
It’s been a good year for Gonnet, whose commercial cattle won him the grand champion steer banner and reserve grand heifer at Farmfair in Edmonton last winter.
Each year he and his father Geoff Gonnet shop around for prospect show cattle and buy young weaned calves at around 500 pounds. He appears in as many as 30 shows a year.
“I show heifers all summer long.”
Shows like the Olds steer and heifer classic allow young people to compete against more experienced adults and, in the case of 11-year-old Jaelayne Wilson of Bashaw, Alta., it means beating them all.
“I think I was two when I started,” she said as she tied up her grand champion Black Angus heifer. She owns it with her parents Dawn and Lee Wilson who are well known purebred cattle judges and breeders.
She participates in shows around the province but this was her first big win, where she beat her two sisters as well as adult competitors in the heifer class.
That competitiveness is a good experience for all involved, said Donna Smith, who chairs the livestock committee for the Olds Agricultural Society, a major show sponsor.
“It is a big thing for these kids. They don’t all have an opportunity to show in a facility like this.”
The Olds show is one of the few remaining jackpot events left in Alberta. Participant entry fees go into a jackpot that is shared in a 60-40 split among champion winners. This year drew about 100 entries from all over the province.
The event is open to anyone and offers a junior component as well. This helps 4-H members sharpen their showing skills so that by achievement day they are comfortable before a judge and have learned enough animal control so there are fewer runaways, said Smith.
This year the grand champion steer was awarded to Flewelling Cattle Co. of Bowden, Alta. It received $960 in prize money while the reserve got $640.
The junior show champion was a Shorthorn steer entered by Dusty Howell of Penhold, Alta., and shown by Tyler Nostadt of Windsor, Ont.
The junior show awarded $450 to the grand champion and $300 to the reserve champion.
