KORATS IN THE USA

 

CFA International Show 2001
Korat breeders meeting and show reports - Houston (USA), 16/17/18 November 2001

THE SHOW REPORT


GRC Mowl Sima's Shape of my Heart
(from the CFA website)

In Championship, we had 6 Korats competing, including 2 OPENS, and 4 Grand Champions

OPENS:

  • Kiriki Thursday's Childe (8-month-old female) - collected 5 of the 6 Winners Ribbons, and needs 1 more to become a CFA Champion. She also was made 3rd Best of Breed in 2 rings.
  • Skarraghbrae The Ptoot (9-month-old female) - collected 1 Winners Ribbon. Lovely silver tipping.

GRAND CHAMPIONS:

GRC Mowl Sima's Shape-of-my-Heart (Sophie - 1 year, 3 month female) - currently 2nd Best (Allbreed) Cat in CFA. Sophie was Best of Breed Korat in all 6 rings. She was the Best CAT in 4 rings, 2nd Best Cat in another ring, and 5th Best Cat in the sixth ring. There were around 150 cats competing in that category. She was the highest-scoring cat in Shorthair Championship and was one of the 6 cats competing for Best of the Best (Highest scoring cats in longhair Championship, Premiership and kittens and the same categories of shorthair cats). She didn't win Best of the Best, but she was certainly recognized for the quality and personality that are uniquely Korat!!! One of the judges enjoys laying her upside down on his arm and holding her there. In fact, he held her upside down on his hand. She just lay there, with her tail hanging straight down and her head upside down completely relaxed. Bred & owned by Cheryl & Perry Coleman, of Gaithersburg, Maryland.

GRC Pewterprints Blue Rose (Rosie - 2 year 9 months old female) - was (overall) 2nd Best of Breed Korat

GRC Gentlegift Ploy Mani of Shoalwater (Gem - 13 month old female) - was the (overall) 3rd Best of Breed Korat and also collected the rosette as 11th Best SH Cat in Championship in Don Williams' ring. Bred by Judy Buckle-Ganoe & Dennis Ganoe & J. Chambers and owned by Deb Estep.

GRC Kiriki Toh-Na-Dee (Toodie - 13 month old female) - was 3rd Best of Breed in one ring. Bred by Ann Segrest and Thea Robinson and owned by Ann & Laura Segrest.

KITTENS: (here I'm working without a net, because I don't have the details).

  • Mowl Sima's You Go, Girl (5 month old female) took BOB in every ring and was overall Best Korat Kitten. She made 4 finals, I think. Maybe 5.
  • Mowl Sima's Like, I'm So Sure! (5 month old male). Both kittens bred & owned by the Colemans.

PREMIERSHIP (I don't have the placements in the rings for these cats):

  • GRP Mowl Sima's Diva of XTC (16 month old spay) was the 2nd BEST CAT in SH Premiership....second only to the Manx spay that was later named Best of the BEST. Diva was named in 5 of the 6 SH Premiership finals. Bred by the Colemans and co-owned by them and Mary & R.C. Smith.
  • GRP Gentlegift's Jade (4-1/2 year-old-spay) was named in one final as 6th Best Cat in Premiership. Jade was bred by Doris Langford and the Ganoes and is owned by the Ganoes. She was also Best Cat and finaled 3rd in one ring.
  • GRP Soigne's Kra Rok of Kal-Lee (5-1/2 year old neuter) was bred by Ray & Suzanne Ratliff and is owned by Roberta (Bobbie) Weihrauch.

THE KORATEERS'S MEETINGS

I promised that I would report on the human activities at the CFA International Cat Show and I will try and do that. This year was far more casual than last year for the Korat people. Last year we had several formal meetings and some coordinated activities. This year there werefewer Korat people there for more than the 3 days of the show.

Jen, Anthea, and Brian came in from England on Tuesday, and Ailsa flew in from Canada on that day and stayed at a hotel near the airport. The Brits said that they were trying to get past jet lag, but it didn't work. Several times during our visit, my roommate Jen would simply tip over and fall asleep at about 9 PM, just when the rest of us were starting to party. Of course it was 3 AM for her and 7 PM for me, but you can get an idea of the levels of tiredness, regardless of the time of day. My original plan was to take the red-eye from Portland and meet the rest of them on Wednesday. Because of the airline difficulties, I was unable to get to Houston until about 10 PM on Wednesday night. Bobbie arrived on Wednesday, so when I arrived at the hotel, they were all there. The six of us had made plans to visit the Johnson Space Center on Thursday, which involved renting a minivan and setting off in Houston traffic for the 25 mile drive to the center. Houston traffic is a genuine adventure, with some interesting access methods for the freeways. We first drove about 5 miles West before we could turn around and get on the correct freeway. So on Thursday, we did visit the space center and it was a most interesting visit. There is a 10-15 minute movie which we saw soon after we got there. It is a very moving film, showing the development of the space program from the late 50s to the present. It brought back some intense feelings for several of us who had lived thru those decades. My first child learned to crawl the day that John Glenn orbited the Earth in 1962. We were refinishing a deck on our house when Apollo 11 landed on the moon in 1969. I remember vividly stopping our work to watch the landing.

The Visitor Center is a mix of genuine historic artifacts (Mercury, Gemini & Apollo capsules with the charred exteriors) and tacky souvenirs; a full-size model of the space shuttle's cabin that you can walk thru; and a fabulous gift shop with good stuff (the cowboy-cat T-shirt with astronaut-cats).We rode in a tram over to the actual Space Center, where the astronauts and shuttle crews are trained. The tour is very controlled because of the intensified security. We were frisked with a metal detector before we boarded the tram and we had to carry a numbered card with us at all times. My husband said that I probably asked to be frisked a second time, but that is not correct. The guy wasn't that good looking <gg>. That was very interesting but you don't get to see very much happening, as you are looking at the outside of the training capsules and modules and you can't see what's going on inside, altho the red light was blinking to indicate that actual training was occurring.Having spent about 4 hours at the Space Center, we decided that we'd better scoot back into town before therush hour started. Ha!!!! They don't have a rush hour in Houston; it never ends.

Eventually, though, we did get back to town and had dinner at the hotel (we stayed at the DoubleTree Hotel, which was the show hotel). Oh, I forgot that we went shopping on Thursday night (a $20 taxi ride each way).The Korat display had been shipped by FedEx to me at the hotel, so after dinner and shopping (10:30 PM), Jen, Ailsa, Bobbie and I set about putting the parts together. It took longer than we expected. We finished most of it by about 1 AM and I let everyone go to bed while I cleaned up the scraps. We all agreed the next day that it was worth it, because the display was very nice, with some interesting pictures and some quotes from various publications about the Korat.

The rest of the exhibitors arrived on Thursday night (Dennis Ganoe, Deb Estep, Bill Gustafson, and Laura Segrest), altho we didn't see them until Friday morning when we all got on the buses and were shuttled over to the show hall at the George R. Brown Convention Center. Laura was staying with relatives and dropped in on Friday for a while and then spent Saturday at the show. We found our benching area. We were as far from the front door, the vendors, the restrooms, and the restaurant as it was possible to be. The breeds are all benched alphabetically, so we didn't have much choice, being the K breed. Well, it was the vendors' loss that we had to walk so far, altho we all managed to find most of them during the 3 days of the show. We all were given souvenir bags from Royal Canin and Friskies, as well as goodies from IAMS. We managed to have enough exhibitor badges for our foreign visitors so they didn't have to pay to go in and out. As I reported in my brief message about the winners, we had 11 Korats in competition, including 2 kittens, 3 Grand Premiers, 2 Opens in Championship, and 4 Grand Champions. Included in those Korats were 3 of the highest ranking Korats in CFA (one is currently 2nd Best Cat in CFA and another is currently 4th Best Premiership Cat (alter) in CFA. A third Korat is currently 33rd Best Cat in Premiership -- all 3 cats competing against all breeds). Needless to say, those 2 top cats did very well. GRC Mowl Sima's Shape-of-My-Heart (Sophie) was the Best Cat in Shorthair Championship after 3 days of competition and GRP Mowl Sima's Diva of XTC was the 2nd Best Cat in Shorthair Premiership after the 3 days. I can say without any reservations that the KORAT was noticed at the 2001 CFA International Show.

The best part about all of the competition came from the judges who praised our Korats for their sweet dispositions and the quality of all the cats that we had brought to the show. We had a very good cheering section for the Korats, too, because of our friends from the UK and the friends who came to the show just to visit us. Mary (can't remember her last name) was there. She used to show some Skookumchuck Korats in that area of the country. Ann Boylan was there, with some friends (who brought us lunch on Sunday thank you very much). Please, someone remind me of the names of these really nice people. We had lots to cheer about, with Korats in EVERY Championship Final and
EVERY Premiership Final. The Korat female kitten also was in 4 (I think) finals.

On Friday night, we decided to cancel the Breed Council Meeting that had been scheduled and decided, instead, to hold an informal meeting in the show hall on Saturday morning before the judging started. On Friday night, a whole bunch of us went to a barbeque restaurant (Pappa's) and pigged out. On Saturday morning, our BC meeting was held and was more of a chance to talk with each other than it was a time to discuss issues.

On Saturday evening, IAMS hosted a light buffet supper for all exhibitors with a no-host bar. Not enough tables, not enough bars, not enough food, too much noise. We left after the chicken dance and went down to the bar and ordered desserts and coffee. We retired early to pack for our trips home. Several of us left the show hall on Sunday, going directly to the airport on the busses, so we had to haul all of our luggage with us. On Sunday, we began taking down the breed booth display after lunch. Jen and Anthea decided that they would like to use the pictures and quotes on a display at the Supreme in the UK the following weekend, so they took all of the pictures with them (color copies). That saved me the hassle of mailing the display back to Oregon. The boards that I used were foamboard, and cost as much to mail home as it would cost to replace them. Not a difficult decision, except that I hate to throw anything useful away.

To sum up our adventures in Houston, I have to say that we missed the folks that came last year who had to be somewhere else this weekend. Next year, we want everyone to come to Houston so we can really have a good time. We know some of the places NOT to eat in, and I think we might stay at a less expensive hotel. Also, after this experience, I think it can really make a difference to the visibility of a breed to have the very best cats of that breed present and competing at the International Show. I know that I have forgotten something or someone important from my report. Diva's owners were on the other side of our row and we didn't have much of a chance to get to know Mary and R. C. Smith, and we should have made more effort to include them in our groups. They were also showing other breeds, so they were busy with their activities, so it didn't work out too well. And Cheryl Coleman was one of the 2 Master Clerks for the show, responsible for
recording all of the results of the kitten judging, so she was busy all of the time, and her cat and kittens were benched inside the central area away from the Korat benching area and not accessible to spectators at all.

The participants at Houston with cats included:

  • Jen Lacey (UK) showing her new cat Kiriki Thursday's Childe (Open female)
  • Dennis Ganoe (Oregon) showing GRP GRC Gentlegift's Jade
  • Deb Estep (Washington) showing GRC Gentlegift's Ploy Mani of Shoalwater
  • Bobbie Weihrauch (Minnesota) showing GRP Soigne's Kra Rok of Kal-Lee
  • Mary & R.C. Smith (Michigan) showing GRP Mowl Sima's Diva of XTC
  • Cheryl Coleman (Maryland) showing GRC Mowl Sima's Shape-of-My-Heart, Mowl Sima's Like, I'm So Sure! (male kitten), and Mowl Sima's You Go, Girl! (female kitten)
  • Ailsa Stark (Manitoba, Canada) showing Skarraghbrae The Ptoot (Open female)
  • Bill Gustafson (Nebraska) showing GRC Pewterprints Blue Rose
  • Ann & Laura Segrest (Oregon) showing GRC Kiriki Toh-Na-Dee.

Mark your calendars....the weekend before Thanksgiving next year (2002), in Houston.

Ann Segrest
Kiriki Cattery - USA