DENVER—Guests enjoying afternoon tea at the Brown Palace Hotel were served an extra treat Friday when the National Western Livestock Show’s grand champion steer arrived with a surprise guest, the No. 3 steer.
Since 1945, the stock show’s grand champion steer has made its farewell appearance at the hotel before it’s sent to the slaughterhouse. This year’s grand champion, named Chavez, was joined by the third-place steer, Rolex.
They were paraded through the hotel lobby to a pen where they were put on display for two hours.
“Let’s just say the champion’s spirited. They’ll always be calmer when there’s two of them,” said Justin Cumming, director of the National Western’s Stock Show Association, explaining why two animals made the trip this year.
“Bringing a rowdy animal through all these people is going to be very frightening for him,” said Carol MacGregor, a rancher from Cascade, Idaho.
But Chavez, accustomed to the limelight at this point, stood calmly in the pen next to Rolex as camera flashes bounced off his shiny black coat and gawkers closed in around the two steers.
“He gets spooked pretty easy, but he’s been pretty good,” said Chavez’s owner, 18-year-old Ky Stierwalt from Leedey, Okla.
When Rolex’s 17-year-old owner, Lisa Reid of Brighton, decided on a name for her animal, she picked one that would be fitting for a steer that might one day grace the lobby of Denver’s most famous luxury hotel.
“I just tried to think of something that’s high-class sounding,” she said.
“It brings a lot of people to the hotel to experience a taste of the old West,” said hotel spokeswoman Shannon Hulsey.
But some out-of-towners were shocked by the sight of two 1,200 pound animals in the middle of a hotel.
“It’s a little incongruous, but a fascinating tradition,” said Miriam Lang-Budin, a children’s librarian from West Chester, N.Y. “I didn’t realize cattle could be so beautiful. All the librarians are going to be so jealous,” she said.
