The 18 lambs at January’s National Western Stock Show believed to have been injected with a foreign substance sold for a combined $101,500 at the stock show’s auction.
The top lamb went for $28,000 – evidence of the high value at auction of prize-winning livestock.
Pat Grant, president and chief executive of the stock show, acknowledged the high prices but doesn’t necessarily think that leads to cheating.
“We don’t believe those values at this time provide that kind of incentive to cheat,” Grant said. “But that’s a matter under continuing review.”
On Wednesday, Grant announced that 17 exhibitors, ranging in age from 9 to 19, had been disqualified from the 2006 Junior Market Lamb show, held in January, because their lambs are suspected of having been injected with an unknown substance.
The Denver district attorney’s office has opened an investigation to see if the injections involved criminal wrongdoing, such as animal cruelty or tampering with livestock. DA spokeswoman Lynn Kimbrough said an investigator is trying to track down people across the country to talk about the alleged tampering.
Among the disqualified exhibitors are grand-champion winner Kashen Urban of Roosevelt, Okla., and reserve champion winner Kaylee Turner of Elgin, Okla. The other winners are from Oklahoma, Nebraska, Kansas and Iowa.
Officials haven’t determined whether the exhibitors are to blame for the alleged tampering or whether somebody else is at fault. Grant said two meetings of National Western committees in the next month will review the cheating allegations.
A phone call to Urban’s home in Roosevelt, Okla., was not returned Thursday. Turner could not be reached for comment.
While officials don’t know what substance was injected into the lambs, it had the effect of inflaming the lambs’ muscles, making it appear that the lambs were more muscled than they were.
“Market lambs are judged on the ratio of lean muscle to fat, so you want less fat and more muscle,” said National Western spokeswoman Kati Anderson.
National Western officials checked out the lambs’ carcasses at the slaughterhouse after receiving a tip from a person in Texas about the alleged tampering.
Grant said it was apparent something was wrong with them.
“Many of these carcasses had bruises and lesions and appeared to have some pockets of blood in the carcass,” Grant said. “That gave rise to real concern and suspicion.”
Eighteen lambs in all – 17 in the top 34, including the top five at auction – are suspected of having been injected. One competitor had two lambs show signs of tampering, Anderson said.
Grant said one reason auction prices are so high at the National Western is that the buyers see their purchases as philanthropic endeavors.
“They want to help these young people go to school and continue their education,” Grant said.
But there are others who have an interest in the shows.
The exhibitors most often buy their lambs from breeders, for whom a lamb’s success at a major show is good publicity. Breeders may display a young exhibitor’s photo on their website to tout their lambs’ success.
Cody Burson, a Roswell, N.M., breeder who sold Urban the lamb that won grand champion this year, acknowledged he gets a sales boost when lambs he bred do well.
But he said he didn’t tamper with the lamb and doesn’t condone the practice. Burson, whose children also show lambs, said he didn’t have much contact with Urban after the sale.
“We show for the love of the competition and the friendships that we make and the relationships with the people that are our competitors,” Burson said. “We would show sheep if they gave nothing but a rock away because it is a good environment to spend time with my children.”
Staff writer John Ingold can be reached at 720-929-0898 or jingold@denverpost.com.
