10/19/2026
Carl Saucier's recent photos of the great show cows at The Royal from years gone by got me thinking about all the greats of the past and made me pull out this old photo.
It was October 1998, and I was at my first World Dairy Expo I ever attended as our homebred Sr 2 yr old, Walnutlawn Astre Apricot was the first Walnutlawn bred animal to show on the coloured shavings.
As an Intermediate Calf a couple years earlier Apricot was my 4H calf. She was nice, but not overly big and usually placed middle of the pack. Her dam was Raider Nectarine, a cow who was twice nominated All Canadian in milking form, our first real show cow so naturally we were very excited to calve her in. She calved in the Summer of '98 and immediately created alot of excitement around our farm and Greg Brain had stopped in and loved her. A short time later he brought Eric and Oscar Dupasquier in to see her and they bought her in partnership with us and Greg, and Apricot moved to Dupasquier's to get ready for the big shows. Dupasquier's cow Charles Winnia who if memory serves me correctly, was All Canadian as a calf and yearling the 2 years prior was also in the same class. We had heard she calved in great and in our minds she was UNREAL, so if they see it as a good idea to purchase Apricot, she must really be something else. I remember my Dad walking on cloud 9 all that summer looking forward to the Fall show season. My parents and I went down to Madison, and at least in our minds haha she was "the 2 year old to beat" so we went there with kind of a win or bust mentality... or at least I did. At show time I remember Dad being down with Apricot helping get her to the ring and he came back and said that Apricot looked great but it is unbelievable how many great cows are down there! My eyes grew wide and stomach filled with butterflies as the ring filled right full and all of the cows looked unbelievable. I remember thinking "how will Apricot even get noticed among so many great cows!" I'm pretty certain Bob Morrell was judge and David Dyment was his associate and I remember Apricot getting pulled in 3rd place and we were relieved. Remember I came with a win or bust mentality with her, but I was a naive young guy who had no idea how deep that water would get LOL. I still can picture Apricot getting led out of the first lineup tapped as 1st place... Dan Doner at the strap! Apricot ended up as 1st place Sr 2 and HM Intermediate Champion, then followed it up with 1st Sr 2 and Intermediate Champion at The Royal and as well being All Canadian and All American Sr 2 year old later in the year.
I had just turned 15 years old at this time and loved the excitement and challenge of breeding holsteins and improving generation to generation, but Apricot lit a fire in me and I still can't help but smile when thinking of the thrills and excitement she brought us. Though I still love the shows, we don't show as much as we used to but now it is a dream come true for me to see daughters of our bulls compete at the highest level of national shows around the world and Apricot was the cow that really lit that passion in me.
