2023 Komoka ARBA Show

One of the perks of showing at Komoka, professional photo for all competitors. This year's theme was year of the rabbit.

Komoka is the unofficial season ender show for ARBA competitions in Ontario. It is always a big and well ran show. This year as always, there were 3 open shows plus multiple breed specialties. There were 6 judges booked for this event: Danielle and Justin Lowe from IN, Chuck Pelham and Penny Jackson from MI, Tom Schweikart from PA, and Jodi Hartman from NY. I was very excited at the opportunity to be able to show under some new to me judges. When the show entries closed, 600 rabbits were entered and the organizers scrambled to find 2 more judges at the last minute to help the show run in a timely manner. Ontario's John Richter and Mark Stewartson graciously stepped up.

The showroom towards the end of the day after some people had already left

This show ended up being utterly insane for me, mostly due to the number of animals and different breeds I brought. In addition to my angoras, I brought my one NZ and 3 Californians. All of the angora breeds always show together back to back. I thought worst case scenario I would have to have rabbits at 3 tables, and only if that happened by chance. I did the same thing at the Spencerville show and things had worked out ok. Well, I found myself running around almost non stop all day long from one table to another. Often times I had multiple rabbits showing at the same time on multiple different tables. What I was not expecting was that the organizers would split the angoras! As one angora breed finished, it was immediately up to show at their next table in an effort to get the specialty shows done. The worst thing possible did happen. At one point I had 4 breeds showing at 4 different tables, all on the completely opposite ends of the show room. I can't thank enough the many people who were so wonderful to not only help get my rabbits on to the show tables but to find me in the maze of people to get those rabbits from me in the first place. Unfortunately I missed being able to watch the judging of the entire breeds or varieties and in some cases the judging of my own rabbits. Things got crazy from the start and I never even unpacked my grooming equipment to fluff out the angoras before their showings. It's a good thing I always groom all my rabbits the day before at home and for once, no one made a mess of themselves the morning of the show. The bit of spare time I did get during lunch break, I used up getting a few rabbits registered.

All of the angoras showed under judge Penny for show A, Show B judge Justin, Show C judge John, and the Angora Specialty judge Mark.

Let's start with the English Angoras. We had a total of 18 animals entered by 6 exhibitors:

4 Colored Sr bucks

6 Colored Sr does

2 Colored Jr bucks

1 Colored Jr doe

2 White Sr bucks

3 White Sr does

Zero a week before the show, already moulting so badly she had a hole in her face!

Zero a week before the show

By now Zero and Zanzi were both getting close to being 9mo old. Zero was always the one with a lot more density but she had started to moult heavily couple weeks before the show and had already lost a noticable amount of her coat over the shoulders. Zanzi was moulting slightly but still hanging on to most of her coat up top. Zero was always the clear winner of the two but going into this show I wasn't sure how the judges would see things. Zero still had a bit more density but her coat was starting to feel dead while Zanzi's coat still had wonderful fresh feeling texture.

Zanzi back in July, my most recent pic of her! Life has been very busy.

Despite of there being a predetermined points value to all the qualities on which the rabbits are judged, each judge has a different judging style and they do have their own personal preferences and biases. Some judges put more emphasis on texture, others just on density, some will fault heavily an animal who's coat isn't even in it's over all appearance, for others it's more of a foot note when providing comments. Hence things can always play out differently than one might expect depending on the judge.

Ideally, I would have preferred to have slightly younger seniors competing at this show but unfortunately non of the breedings I did for this show had worked out the way I was hoping to. Hippo who is out of a repeat breeding that produced Zero and Zanzi had just turned 6mo old a week before the show so her Sr coat had just started to come in. Due to the time of the year, she was also starting to moult. I wasn't expecting her to be competitive against the older girls.

Hippo a week before the show

I made it my priority to watch the competition between the colored Sr girls, unfortunately I only caught bits and pieces of the judging for the other groups if at all.

Placings for the colored Sr girls in show B (our first show of the day) under judge Justin from IN were:

1. Mary's Tequila, Tort

2. Electric Zanzibar, Lilac

3. Julie's 234, Blue

4. Electric Zero Hour, Black

5. Electric Hippo, Blue

6. Julie's 233, Black

For show B, BOB went to Mary's Sr Tort buck Charlie and BOS went to Mary's Sr Tort doe Tequila.

Placings for show C under judge John from ON were:

1. Julie's 233, Black

2. Electric Zero Hour, Black

3. Electric Zanzibar, Lilac

4. Julie's 234, Blue

5. Mary's Tequila, Tort

6. Electric Hippo, Blue

I don't know who won the breed for show C.

Placings for the Angora Specialty show under judge Mark from ON were:

1. Julie's 233, Black

2. Electric Zero Hour, Black

3. Julie's 234, Blue

4. Electric Zanzibar, Lilac

5. Electric Hippo, Blue

Mary's Tequila wasn't entered. Julie's 233 ended up winning BOV and BOB while BOSV and BOSB went to Sr colored buck Niagara's Toast, handled by Christina. Julie's 233 then went on to win the Angora specialty show!

Our last show late in the day was show A with judge Penny from MI. At this point Hippo had left to go home with her new owner so she did not compete.

1. Julie's 233, Black

2. Julie's 234, Blue

3. Electric Zero Hour, Black

4. Mary's Tequila, Tort

5. Electric Zanzibar, Lilac

Placings for white Sr bucks for show A were:

1. Bermah Misty, handled by Mary

2. Mary's Elvis

Placings for white Sr does for show A were:

1. Oddball's Jelly, handled by Kristi

2. Mary's Pricilla

3. Bermah MyMy, handled by Mary

Show A BOB went to Mary's tort buck Charlie and BOS went to Julie's black doe 233.

Zero after the show

Zanzi after the show, ready to get outta there!

Under French Angoras I showed 2 littermates who were around 4.5mo old. Electric Mr.Munch, a Chestnut buck, and Electric Zorro, a Black doe. Both are out of our French buck Electric Trucker Boy and just like their dad were growing very quickly. Mr.Munch was 7.5lbs which put him right at the limit for Jrs. He was the only Jr buck showing. Zorro was creeping up towards hitting 9lbs and had to show as a Sr. She ended up beating 2 Sr does from Ontario and Michigan, taking 2nd place to Charlotte Schweikert's black doe Mod in all of the shows. Mod ended up getting BOB and later taking RIS for show B. Charlotte's convention winning pointed white doe Jewel won BOB in the other shows and went on to win BIS for show A, and RIS for show C.

Electric Zorro, home after the show

Electric Mr.Munch, home after the show

The two beautiful French girls, Jewel and Mod:

Jewel

Mod

Finally, the Satin Angoras. I was hoping this would be a good showing for the breed as Solveil from QC usually brings a bunch of hers to this show. Unfortunately this time she only brought one Jr doe. There was one more competitor from MI with a Sr buck and all together we ended up with a total of 9 colored animals.

Our now Sr Choc Tort buck Electric George won BOV and BOB for shows A and B, while taking BOSV and BOSB for show C and the Specialty show. These wins make him our fist home bred Satin Angora buck to earn the Grand Champion title!

Electric George, Chocolate Tort buck

Our Copper Sr doe, Maple Ridge's Brownie (bred by Tammy Heaston) took BOSV and BOSB for show A, and BOV and BOB for show C. For show B, BOSV and BOSB went to our Red girl Electric Argentina. The Specialty show BOV and BOB went to Brownie's daughter, our Chin girl Electric Bonanza. Following her winnings at Spencerville, this also qualified Bonanza for the Grand Champion title!