This 12-year-old Texan won the Fort Worth junior steer grand prize – with a Hereford
Twelve-year-old Ryder Day fought back tears of joy, but his little brother, Riggin, just let the emotions flow.
On Friday, the older Day pulled off a victory that many at the Fort Worth Stock Show & Rodeo said was historical. He won the junior steer grand champion prize for showing his Hereford, Cupid Shuffle.
It was the first time since 1982 that a Hereford breed had won the prestigious top prize in the competition, stock show spokesman Matt Brockman said. For many years, the event has been dominated by European crossbreds.
Cupid Shuffle, sporting a rust-colored body and white face, will be auctioned Saturday morning. If the sale goes as planned, it likely will fetch nearly $200,000 for Ryder and Riggin to put in their shared college account.
“Me and my brother are going to build a ranch, just like my parents,” Ryder, representing Meadow FFA, said matter-of-factly after the show, while getting repeated hugs from his teary-eyed little brother.
Observers were delightfully stunned not only by Day’s win, but also by the fact that the reserve champion was also a Hereford. Holly Thomas, 17, of Gatesville 4H west of Waco, took the second prize with her Hereford, who was simply named Dave.
The Hereford breed is originally from England, but has deep roots in Texas dating back to the mid-1800s.
“Just like anything else, the trends of an industry go in lots of directions,” said steer judge Chris Mullinix of Manhattan, Kansas, finishing his second and final year of working the Fort Worth junior steer competition. “The Hereford breed has improved a lot in the last 15 years, and many breeders have worked hard to make the cattle so much better.”
Saturday’s auction is billed as the Sale of Champions and will feature an old-fashioned, in-the-round sale of more than 300 prized animals.
The junior steer competition, in which more than 1,500 animals compete in more than 40 categories, is widely considered the most prestigious event at the Stock Show, which will come to the end of its 22-day run on Saturday.
This year’s junior steer competition was held at the Will Rogers Coliseum, with more than 2,000 people looking on. In previous years, the competition was held at the much smaller Watt Arena, which typically held only 1,000 or so fans.
Among the competitors was Pierce Dutton, a 10th grader from Boerne, northwest of San Antonio. Dutton has muscular dystrophy and showed his Charolais steer while using an all-terrain wheelchair known as an Action Trackchair.
Dutton’s brother also has muscular dystrophy and also uses an Action Trackchair, which features tank-like tracks instead of exposed wheels and can fully operate in mud or soft sand.
“They go everywhere. They go hunting together,” proud father David Dutton explained.
Pierce Dutton, who attends Geneva School of Boerne, said what he likes best about competing in steer competitions is “seeing a lot of people I know, and people who like doing the same things as me.”
Last year, 13-year-old Aven Horn of Abilene was awarded the grand prize at the Fort Worth junior steer show. Her 1,399-pound steer, Bentley, a plush, light brown European crossbred, was sold for $195,000 at auction.
The winning bidder for Bentley last year was Hillwood, the real estate company that operates the AllianceTexas development — including Alliance Airport — in far north Fort Worth.
Last year, a total of 1,580 steers competed in 45 categories. They competed in six breed categories, and varying weight classes.
Although the junior steer champion typically wins enough money to pay for four years of college, the price has dropped somewhat in recent years. In 2017, the best steer sold for a record $240,000.
The Fort Worth Stock Show, unlike stock shows in other states, lets the winners keep all the money — and that makes it possible for participants to take part in the show without asking for donations to cover their expenses.
“Our motto is ‘work hard and win big,’ and this is the epitome of winning big,” the Day brothers’ mom, Katie Jo Day, said as she soaked in the moment Friday afternoon with family and friends. “The money, that factors into it, but we do this for a living.”
This story was originally published February 7, 2020 at 5:43 PM.
