It was a great honour and pleasure for me to be asked by the Australian Tumbler Club to go over and judge at the ANPA National show held in Ipswich, Queensland, in July. An entry of around 170 Clean Legs, Muffed and Baldheads were entered and overall I thought the quality was very high, especially in the Clean Legs.
A new concept the Australian Tumbler Club are using is to have an 'apprentice' judge sit with the judge so as to gain experience in judging. This year I was to have Werner Zimmer and John Ferraro sitting in, but as Werner had to judge other breeds, it was only John who was with me. John is obviously no novice when it comes to Tumblers, but I hope he enjoyed the experience as much as I did.
First up were the Muffed Tumblers. One comment I must make is a Muffed Tumbler must have muffs! There were some really nice birds, but were lacking a bit in muffs. In the young birds I gave best to a Blue. This bird is without doubt the best Barred Muffed Tumbler I've had the pleasure to judge. A wonderful head and beak, perhaps stands a little too tall, and was just on the borderline for muffs for me. This bird belonged to Jeff Krahenbring.
The adult birds came down to a decision between a fabulous White cock, with absolutely fantastic beak and beak setting, the likes I've never seen before in a White Muffed Tumbler, but lacked length of muff, and a Black Teager, not nearly the power of the White, but was well marked, good beak setting and had good muffs. As I try to judge for an overall Tumbler and not just certain points, I decided on the Black Teager as Best Muffed Tumbler. This bird belonged to Eddie Colombini.
The White belonged to Jeff Krahenbring and I'm certain when Jeff puts another couple of inches on the muffs, he'll take the Muffed Tumblers in Australia to another level.
In the Marked Muffed Tumblers there were some nice Baldheads. I gave best to an adult Black Baldhead belonging to Felice Esposito, which also went on to win best Muffed Tumbler overall, beating the Teager on power of head, beak setting and neck.
Doug McClary also gives his account of the Australian National Show - not to be missed!
