Colonial Athena

It actually occurred to us multiple times as we were campaigning CCNF Snow King in the spring of 2019 on the halter show circuit, that the very fleece traits that make him so attractive to us as a Herdsire, were the same ones causing him by the month of March to look like a red-hot mess. In short: a dense, fine, long-stapled fleece, which when combined with several days on a trailer and a touch of heating vent at the show facility…and voila! Even after putting him under show fans set to high for three days before going into the ring, the eye didn’t always agree with what the hand was feeling this spring, so huge credit to the judges for understanding what it was that was in front of them. The simple fact though is that no show result would have changed his status on his birth farm, even if he had gotten the gate and made the walk of shame. For our part, we had projected this guy to be a Herdsire since before his 1st birthday. Snow King is the son of arguably our best Elite Legend daughter ever, CCNF Elizabeth, herself the maternal granddaughter of her name-sake, the powerful ’93 import PPeruvian Elizabeth, who joined our program in ’02 and lived out her days here with us. Combine those powerful genetics with Archangel, then add Elite Legend, producing young Elizabeth and then breed *her* to MFI’s & KVR’s Mint Mo Money, our Futurity Champion and JC winner, and Snow King was the excellent result! While there is no question that Snow King’s value to us specifically is elevated some by his pedigree and it’s lack of relative closeness to several of our white/light female lines, it is ultimately his fleece traits that put him over the top. Dense, fine, and bright? Yes, please: we’d *always* like more of that! Update, summer of 2022: Snow King has not only proven that he is more that capable of siring quality offspring (several of whom were part of our BoTY-winning show team at the '22 Futurity) but he has continued to age with grace and was just awarded not just the Reserve White Male Championship at the 2022 AOA National Fleece Show but was also chosen as the the Judges' Choice Huacaya Male, while being just shy of his 5th birthday. In essence, he has turned into everything we could have hoped for.