Photos of Grinstead Plutocrat and Ambassador

[cascade]

Anyone have any photos of Grinstead Plutocrat or Grinstead Ambassador. I have reasons to believe they may have been polled (possibly with scurs). They descend from the foundation Dexter cow named "Harley Poll", 1894

[cddexter]

Hi Kirk:

My photo of Plutocrat dates from 1936 when he was First at the Royal Counties show in Worthing. Horned.

Pasture photo of Ambassador from about 1950.  Ugly, but horned.

Judy, thanks for all your research.  Getting those old records from the Key family must have been a chore.  Lucky (?) David made off with all the Society material when he did a bunk, just like Rosemary did with the ADCA stuff, only the Key's are willing to share.

I have an 'official' extended pedigree of Platinum from the DCS which shows the latter paperwork, so I guess the Society got it wrong.  Both fortunately for the breed, we have you to keep us on the straight and narrow; and unfortunately for those members with narrow vision Platinum's pedigree met ADCA requirements at the time of registration, even with a dicey Piella. 

Have you spent as much time on your old favourite, Bullfinch?  What about Freda simply materializing in the herd book with ZERO antecedents?  And, what about all that gossip from those who were there at the time that a lot of the Parndon registrations were based on myth?  If you look you'll find three Goldfinches, and if you check the old ADCA records you'll find Peerless Piddle and Peerless Puddle mixed up, too.  Putting too much emphasis on paper purity can be dangerous. 

Maybe it's time to be consistent:  if Platinum has destroyed the breed by being common to a lot of pedigrees, why is Bullfinch's presence merely unfortunate?  Shouldn't he be also tarred with the same brush, and anything with Parndon behind it is also destructive of the breed?

Is it time to remind everyone that while most other Dexter assns. allow upgrading the ADCA doesn't.  Geneticists say (1) after four generations of selective breeding (for breed traits, against 'other breed' breed traits), the animal can be considered pure because all the other traits are common to all (like you don't get a Dexter black gene, because it's the same gene everywhere), and (2) according to Michael Brufford (Cardiff study) it takes 27 generations to statistically completely remove any of the 'other breed' genetics, including all the ones common to every breed like feet and tail and hair and tongue and guts and...so you can take your pick.  And, of course, most herd books mean well but are a work of fiction pre DNA testing.  Piella is in good company.

Cheers, c.

[cascade]

Here's a photo of Grinstead Ambassador sent to me this morning. He definitely had true horns.

[cascade]

If you send me a copy of Grinstead Plutocrat's photo, I can post it

[cascade]

There are two kinds of horns: 

1. True-Horns
2. Scur-Horns

Scur horns can look somewhat similar to true horns. Animals with scur-horns can carry a hidden polled gene.

I believe it's likely that Grinstead Plutocrat was scur-horned with a polled gene. A good clear photo of his horns would help us understand, but nobody seems to have a photo available.

Meanwhile, here's what scur-horns look like on a polled Dexter.  Most people wouldn't understand that this animal is genetically polled.