SMITHFIELD SENSATION

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXXVII, Issue 19750, 17 March 1934, Page 15

SMITHFIELD SENSATION

“DOCTORED” EXHIBIT. The fact that the Galloway steer which became champion at the 1933 Smithfield Fat Stock Show was afterwards disqualified because of the discovery that it had been the subject of “malpractice” caused a sensation in British live stock circles. Naturally, the incident aroused a good deal of censure, but the even greater astonishment evoked is proof—if proof were wanting—that the occurrence is quite an isolated one. Nothing of a similar kind has been known before in the 130 years’ history of the Smithfield Show, or indeed of any other live stock exhibition in this country. That there is a great deal in the art of showing is well known to all breeders who regularly send their live stock to exhibitions, for without due preparation and training a good animal may often have its merits overlooked or under-estimated. Many stockmen in charge of pedigree herds and flocks are extremely skilled in their craft, having carried the art of preparing cattle and other stock for the judgingring to a high pitch of perfection.

Devices to enhance the attractiveness of animals on exhibition are practised, for that matter, in all countries where the show system prevails. But hitherto it has always been held, and on good grounds, that the measures adopted by British exhibitors in “fitting” animals for show are harmless and are easily detected by the judges. The isolated Smithfield occurrenceregrettable as it is—will not shake the confidence generally felt in the integrity of our live stock exhibitors. Things are different in some parts of the United States, where the "doctoring” of show animals may be so frequent that action has been called for, on more than one occasion, to put an end to it. A practice which some time back aroused several of the leading American show organisations to interfere is that of ‘filling” or “plugging,” by which is meant the injection of tallow, lard or turpentine under the skin of an animal whose outline is capable of improvement by the levelling of natural depressions. Some such treatment, it is understood, was practised on the Galloway steer shown at Smithfield, the slaughter of the animal establishing positive proof.