This past Sunday at the fair, they held the Supreme Showmanship competition. Every breed of animal exhibited at the fair has showmanship competitions. The oldest group of exhibitors are called the Seniors. The top Senior show-person for each breed competes in Supreme. It's hard to explain if you've never seen it, but I'll try....
Chelsea won showmanship for the pig show. That means, she did the best job (in the judge's opinion) of moving the pig back and forth in front him, keeping her composure, and watching him. She also had to answer hard questions from the judge. She has won this before, and is just a natural at it. She exudes confidence and is fun to watch. Since she won, on Sunday, she brought her pig that she used to the show arena and placed it in a pen they made for it for the Supreme Competition. While it was in that pen, she exhibited the way to "drive" a pig and she answered questions about pigs.
Each person who won showmanship for their breed did the same thing. They brought their animal they used into the arena, and they did a short bit of exhibiting their animal and answering questions about their animals.
This is all done at the same time - set up like stations around the arena.
After 3 minutes the time keeper has them stop and all move on to the next animal station. There, they have 3 minutes to do the same thing. For example, the next station for Chelsea was sheep. She had to "set-up" the sheep and answer questions. After 3 minutes, she moved on to the next station...and so on, until all of them had gone around the arena to have a chance to exhibit each animal. All are judged by an "expert" at each station. The person with the best overall score wins Supreme Showmanship.
If it sounds hard...it is! Depending on when you win showmanship for your breed, you may only have 1 or 2 days to learn as much as you can about the other breeds. The kids who participate in it, are all great about helping teach their competitors and they have a lot of fun doing it, but it is still very competitive.
Here's some pictures to give you a better idea of what I'm talking about:
As I said, Chelsea started off by "exhibiting" her pig, and she answered some questions about it.
When time was up she moved on to the next station...sheep. She had to set-up the sheep they way an exhibitor would and she answered question from the judge.
Next she moved on to poultry. This is the one that scares her the most. She competed in Supreme a couple of years ago and had tears in her eyes when having to do poultry at that time. She was so afraid of being pecked. This time she was much more relaxed, and I was really proud of her for overcoming that fear.
Next she moved on to the rabbit station. She raised and showed rabbits for several years, so I knew she would do wonderful here. Plus, on the day of the rabbit show they had an alumni showmanship competition, and she won that with a perfect score of 100.
After that it was on to the dog obedience station. She showed in that project area for 3 years and always came in 2nd by 1-2 points or less, so again...I knew she would do great at this station as well.
On to the goat station next. She said that was confusing to learn about because there are somethings similar to sheep, but some things are the exact opposite.
At the horse station, I again knew she would go great since she showed horses at the fair up through last year. She had to walk the horse out, make it pivot, and walk it back. Plus answer questions.
The beef station was the last one for her. She said the size and power of cows intimidates her, but she does really well at staying calm. I'm sure that passed through to the cow as well.
I don't know her overall score, but I know she won by 2 points over the 2nd place person. The Supreme Show-person receives a 'traveling trophy' to keep for the year, and next year she will present it to the person who wins. There will be a name plate put on the trophy with her name on it to go with all the other previous winners.
Congratulations Chelsea. I'm so proud of you!!
