Girls’ goats take top honors at fair

By Aileen Streng

Published: August 12, 2008

It was the girls who had the best showmanship in the dairy goat competition held Tuesday at the Prince William County Fair.

Sandy Crum, 17, of Berkeley Springs, W.Va., a veteran of 11 years, won in the Senior Showmanship division and 9-year-old Erin Davis of Point of Rocks, Md., competing in her first contest, won the Junior Showmanship ribbon.

“I like showmanship because it is more of a challenge for me and it’s just not all about the goat,” Sandy said. “This shows what we can do together.”

Sandy started competing with her goat, Annamarie, who lives at her grandmother’s farm in Nokesville, when she was 6 and placed third in the 2004 national competition out of a field of 51.

On Tuesday, she only had three other competitors and won handily.

“She had the proper positioning and did so with great ease throughout,” said judge Ann Weikel of Blairsville, Pa.

Weikel has her own dairy goat farm and has been judging contests nationwide for 32 years. She also shows her dairy goats and can boast two national champions of her own.

According to the American Dairy Goat Association, the exhibitors are judged on the appearance of the animal, the appearance of the goat and the showing of the animal in the ring.

“Not only does the appearance of the goat need to be neat, tidy and looking good, but so does the appearance of the exhibitors,” Weikel said.

Weikel put the exhibitors and their goats through their paces, having them move around the show ring as she directed. She corrected the teenagers when needed and had them switch animals.

As a test of their showmanship skills and while handling someone else’s goat, she also asked each of them to tell her the goats major fault.

“It has to be obvious and correct,” Weikel said.

The senior division was open to 4-H members between the ages of 14-18. The junior division age range was 9-13.

Erin had her first experience at the Prince William County Fair last year when she came with her grandfather who has a farm in Leesburg and was showing his pigs.

The pigs are housed in the same barn as the dairy goats and as soon as Erin saw them, it was all over.

“I just fell in love with them last year,” Erin said.

She got her own goat, named Butterscotch, in May and has been working with her ever since.

Erin said she enjoyed the competition and would be back again next year.

Almost 200 dairy goats were entered into various competitions at the fair, and Weikel had a lot of judging to do before she would be finished Tuesday night.