Pocahontas' placement = our fault

We have no one to blame but ourselves, and trust me, we are doing a lot of that.

Pocahontas showed in a mixed class of "Huacaya Multi/Indefinite Female". There were 2 pintos in the group, both of which had black blankets and white on their face, neck and legs. And there was one other indefinite dark, like our PoPo. They were all juvi's (under a year old). There were no yearlings for this color class (which also meant no color championship). I do think the pintos have an advantage because their blanket is usually one color, whereas the indefinites by definition have many colors in their blanket. It's easier for one color to be consistent with crimp and fineness, creating a nice handle. My own opinion is that they shouldn't mix classes (they also mixed rose grey with silver grey which I think is unfair. Rose grey is like brown and silver grey like black, you wouldn't judge brown and black together, so I don't think they should rose grey and silver grey. But, the rules state that they can. I may need to start a campaign against combining classes. That could be my newest soap box issue. Like I need an issue to vent about ;) ).

Anyway, Pocahontas received 2nd place. Not that second is bad, and when our animal deserves 2nd next to an incredible 1st placed animal, I take honor that we were right up there with that animal. But in this case the judge said that 1st place went to the one who had the complete package, and then spoke about teeth. What it came down to was the teeth! Po had the better fiber, and has everything else going for her. The judge even said to J that if he had trimmed her teeth she would have gotten 1st place! GRRRRR! What is even more frustrating is that the night before we left for the show J looked at her teeth and commented that they needed to be trimmed, but for some reason we didn't do it. We knew it needed to be done, we skip doing it, and she got 2nd place because of it. Now that is a mistake we will NEVER do again!!! Two 1st place ribbons and she deserved 1st again, had we not messed up.