One show is all it takes for GQ

Hollinger bull captures the only Supreme on the Canadian show circuit.

Normally, there’s always tomorrow. If a show doesn’t go your way, you can always look to the next one.

But if your whole showing year consists of one event, you go in with high hopes. And it’s sure nice to come away with something.

Chad Hollinger said his Angus bull almost didn’t make it to his one event this year, the Stockade Roundup in Lloydminster in November. In the end, he and his bull came away as Supreme champion.

The bull was raised at Hollinger Land and Cattle near Neudorf, Saskatchewan. His mother was purchased from the LLB Angus herd by Chad’s partner Roger Reynolds. His sire, Silveira’s S Sis GQ 2353, was a bull whose Canadian semen rights they had bought in Denver.

The Stockade Roundup Supreme Champion bull, HLC GQ 278F, is co-owned by Hollinger Land and Cattle; Justamere Farms (Lloydminster, SK); Nielson Cattle Company (Craik, SK); and CSI Angus (Emerald Park, SK).

Chad says the bull was shown as a yearling at Canadian Western Agribition in 2019, where he placed second to the reserve champion bull. Since then he’s been walking the pastures at Justamere and at Nielson’s.

“He was one that certainly caught your attention in the pen,” Chad said. “He just had a look about him—he’s super sound, and big-ribbed and big-topped. Just a bull we knew we wanted to retain a part of.”

And as he’s matured, he’s got even better. “He’s exceeded my expectations, let’s put it that way,” Chad said.

Those expectations were never low—Chad had a lot of confidence that the bull would show well as a yearling. He and the other owners were eager to get him out and get him seen.

“He was a bull that we wanted to promote for ourselves and for the people who purchased him. We wanted to promote him because he's a good representation of the cattle we like to breed, so it made sense for us to take him to the shows.

“He's structurally sound, he's smooth-jointed, he's big footed, he travels well, he's free in his movement. There's a lot of calving ease in his pedigree,” he said.

The bull was one of the heaviest weaning calves of his generation at the farm, and was the high seller at their bull sale.

GQ in the spring of 2020

Photo by Jenna Loveridge

He hasn’t had what you would call an extensive show career. Snow, early and often, made a mess of harvest in 2019— Agribition was the only show they managed to enter.

And this year, he escaped from the barn on the day it was announced that Agribition 2020 wouldn’t go ahead.

“I said, you know what, just leave him there,” Chad said. “If there's no other shows, let's just leave him there.

“But a few weeks later, Lloydminster finally said that they're going to try and make this a go. And I pondered it for another week and I said, no, we better go get that bull home.”

They went out and walked the bull the mile or so back home. At this point Chad didn’t know if he had fallen behind in his preparation for the ring. “I wasn't sure if we were behind or not. But we continued to work on him and get him ready,” he said. “He almost missed the bus just because it was such a mixed-up fall. We didn't know what we were doing, if we should be getting him ready or not.”

Chad says the Lloydminster Exhibition Association deserves a lot of credit for keeping the show on the rails. Pandemic regulations meant a lot of obstacles and adjustments leading up to the show dates.

When he finally checked in to the Stockade Round-up, he said, “it was awesome."

“It was great to see some of these people that you don’t see for a whole year sometimes,” he said.

And there were a lot of high-quality animals, including strong Angus representation.

“You walk around the barn and you look at the cattle, I felt it was anybody's game in the show,” Chad said.

“There were some really good bull calves, you know, the best of the best come out as calves. And then the yearling bulls were extremely competitive, good bulls.

“There were four two-year-olds, and walking into that class I thought you could go any direction. He could use any one of us and not be wrong. I thought it was just an excellent set of cattle that all the exhibitors brought forward. It was great to see that our breed has that much strength, that everyone can bring that quality to town.”

Of course the competition doesn’t get any easier in the Supreme ring, and the two-judge panel makes it even harder to predict where you’ll end up.

“You get two judges and two different opinions. It can go different directions, so you just don't know. And when he come charging down there to slap me, it was quite a feeling.”

From here, Chad says the best use of the bull will be in the heifer pen. “He offers a lot of calving ease with that extra growth,” he said. “When calving these heifers out we need something that's going to calve easy, but something that's going to grow and compete with the calves out of your best cows.”

And he thinks the bull will make some excellent females. “His mother is an excellent cow, great udder, good pedigree.

Photo by Christine Boake

“I think the females are going to be real assets to our herd as well.” The bull can also contribute some soundness in a breeding program, fixing some structure issues where needed. And for production qualities, Chad says the bull is a standout.

“We weighed him about two weeks before the show and he was he was just short of 2400 pounds. By the time we got to show, I'm guessing over 2450 or somewhere in that range,” he said.

“There's a lot of red meat in a bull like that. He's not huge framed, but just carrying that much muscle mass I think he's got a lot of good in him for the industry. And I think calves sired by him will feed well and convert forage into pounds, and ultimately make you good beef.”

With the win in Lloydminster, Chad and his bull can boast an undefeated season. Chad is grateful to the Lloydminster Exhibition Association, without whom there wouldn’t have been a show at all.

“I really want to commend Lloyd for sticking their neck out and doing that. I'm sure it wasn't an easy task, judging from the emails we got with the rules and regulations they had to follow to make it go and not get shut down,” he said.

“I can't thank them enough for putting on this event. And the sponsors as well for putting their foot forward and helping put this show on.”

“It was excellent to be there. I'm very glad we went.”