On Saturday there were 4 cats in New Traits. 1 ragdoll and 3 MC polys.
Sunday there were 6 cats in New Traits, the same ragdoll and 5 MC polys; Ormedon’s Ambush P, TLC Polycoon’s Fanny P Write, Vaskebjorns Thurayya P, Leather and Lace Paperdoll P and Cameron Coons Alicia Spinnet P.
The judges were: Massimo Picardello (IT), Alexy Shuchkin (NL), Francine Hicks (USA), Donna Gonyea – Madison (USA) and Jean-Marc Lagarde (Fr).
On Saturday Donna explained to the public that the MC polys are just Maine Coons with extra toes and that the poly breeders and fanciers applied for Championship but were voted down. She suggested next time we’d might better apply for a seperate breed group. Sharon explained that the MC poly breeders and fanciers have discussed this thoroughly and we feel that the MC polys belong within the same class and should get the same rights as the normal footed Maine Coons. Therefore we won’t apply for a seperate breed broup within the Maine Coon breed. She’d understand, but it could take years and we’d might never reach that goal. Because while we’re promoting the MC polys and gaining votes, on the other side, the opposition is gaining NO-votes even harder. We told her the MC poly breeders and fanciers are willing to invest the money (showing, ballot etc.) and time to go for full acceptance. The next day Sharon and I had a private chat with Donna and she said she won’t object to the MC polys, but would never vote different than the outcome of a breed section voting. However she said that some members of the board would vote against the MC polys, no matter what the outcome of the voting of the MC breed section would be. There are 813 MC breed section members. The reason why only 216 members voted last time was because the timing was in between renewing memberships. But that had been our one and only chance. Next time the MC breed section won’t allow this to happen again.
Then we had the judging of Massimo. On Saturday his best New Traits went to the ragdoll, over Ambush. He emphasized ‘Today’. And Jenny said: ‘Well we’ll be back tomorrow.’ After the judging I handed him the article about the MC polys being accepted in NZCF. And I asked him why he opposed the MC polys being accepted in the showring? He said that he was neither against nor in favour. He told me this was the first time he’d actually seen an adult MC poly male of show quality in the showring. He talked about Rh, and I told him that this is a different gene. Then he was talking about whether the boning in the legs of MC polys would be good enough to carry the heavy body weight of the Maine Coon. I said, the extra boning would support that. But he compared it with the Munchkin. We won’t know for sure if the extra bones connected to extra toes are sound and straight. I said if it wasn’t, we would have known by now. But he doubted that. I said so bottom line is: 1. you need proof of the soundness of the boning of MC polys and 2. you need to see more typey adult MC polys in the showring. He told me that he was not important in this issue and referred to Solveigh Pflueger and the MCbreedsection. Besides that he said it would only be a matter of time and numbers (registration of MC polys within TICA) for the MC polys to be accepted in TICA.
On Sunday Sharon and I talked to Francine Hicks. According to Francine, the biggest issue for the MCbreedsection would be that breeders have tried so hard for so many years to breed the trait out of the MC breed. And now other breeders are breeding it back in. And on top of that, want them into the showring. So IMO really a non issue! But we have to face it anyway.
So on Sunday the last ring for New Traits was Massimo’s. Our expectations were high. He talked about the MC polys, his concerns about the boning. And said he was very impressed with the show quality of the MC polys being shown today. Especially Ambush who could easily compete against the normal footed Maine Coons he saw today and would even beat some of them. The compliment couldn’t be bigger. And then.....the moment we’d all been waiting for, Massimo gave the ribbon for best New Traits to Ambush (over the Ragdoll). Massimo explained that it was a lot easier to breed a good type Ragdoll in a different colour than a show quality MC poly. We were all very pleased. Especially since we all know where Massimo is coming from.
We’ve handed the article about acceptance of the MC poly in NZCF to all judges and all Maine Coon breeders attending the show. We also had a large MC poly information stand.
For the MC poly cause this was a good show. And then, coming home, finding Suzan’s message about Diggie and Jazz becoming the first MC poly Champions in the world!!!! That was really the cherry on the cake! Or should I say, the icing on the carrot cake? ;-))
