Stock Show U grooms kids for presenting livestock
Stock Show U all about animal grooming skills
I clean the poop off their feet.
Not many 13-year-olds are eager to go to school, but ask Owen Grundy about Stock Show University and it’s a place he’d go every day if he could.
Stock Show U is a free educational clinic where kids are taught “proper techniques for washing, blow-drying, clipping, grooming, brushing and just generally getting their animals ready for the show ring,” says Owen’s dad, Chris Grundy.
He’s a keen enthusiast of the two-day weekend, as is his son.
With “professors” from all over North America, Stock Show U debuts in Eastern Ontario this weekend at the Metcalfe Fairgrounds.
The two-day event is for kids from 4-H Clubs in Ontario and western Quebec, or for kids who want to learn proper showmanship techniques with their animals. Each participant brings his or her own halter-broke animal. Some students are as young as five or six. Days are long and intense. Kids are up at 4 a.m. to prep their animals for the professors’ arrival at 8 a.m. That means the cows are washed, blown-dry, fed and watered. When the professors show up, students’ focus intensifies so that by the end of Sunday their skills are that much closer to perfection when they participate in a mock show. Spectators are welcome. This is Owen’s third year attending Stock Show U (previously, he travelled to Lindsay, Ont., to attend), and the first for his sister Camryn, 10.
Owen took on his first bovine at age five and decided two years ago to invest in a shorthorn. This year he’s showing a Hereford.
For those not in-the-know, when showing shorthorns, handlers wear burgundy; when showing Herefords they wear red.
And it’s understood that “dress” for the day is jeans, cowboy boots, and a buttoned-up, collared shirt.
As a spectator, consider this as you watch kids in the show ring with their animals: The cattle weigh in at about 1,000 pounds. Owen, on the other hand, weighs 135 pounds and stands 5-foot-6.
The skill in handling big animals is knowing how to do it. That’s why Owen likes to go to Stock Show U. He meets people there who teach him how to do a lot of “stuff ” — like grooming and primping a cow for show, particularly the coat.
Owen explains that they’re taught to “brush the hair forward and down,” which encourages fuller growth.
Animals are washed, conditioned and blow-dried with special products to enhance shine.
“I clean the poop off their feet,” Owen says with a grin, and sometimes the hoofs are sprayed with clear lacquer. Stock Show professors teach kids how to be better showmen and how to do it efficiently.
Looking back over the past three years, Chris agrees. He says Owen is “better with tail, leg work and blending.”
Not that Owen’s a novice. He’s been showing since he was six and his wish, or hope, is to go all over North America as a “fitter” — a behind-the-scenes stylist.
Owen has a good start on his dreams. He’s shown across Ontario, been to multiple Bonanzas — in New Brunswick, Manitoba and Alberta.
In 2014, he was Junior Champion Groomsman in Lindsay. And in 2015 he was Champion Junior Showman in Fredericton, where in a class for 10- to 14-year-olds he took the lead among 50 kids from across Canada.