Showcase Takes You On The Road To Madison

Everyone’s buzzing about the Maryland cow that’s redefining crossover success — and Kevin Jorgensen is calling her a true Cinderella story. In this episode, Host Ethan Haywood teams up with Kevin to spotlight MD-Locustcrest P Zuriniah (VG-89) and a lineup of standout heifers and cows that put their mark on the map at World Dairy Expo.

They dive into the daughters of Showcase™ sires, highlight elite animals featured on regional farm tours, and explore the intersection of show ring glory and free stall profitability. Whether you're a pedigree enthusiast or a performance-driven producer, this episode delivers insights, inspiration, and a celebration of genetic excellence.

Chapters

• 0:27 Introduction
• 1:23 Show success
• 15:54 What’s on the horizon

Transcript

Ethan Haywood

Hello, and welcome back to the Select Sires Podcast. I'm Ethan Haywood, and today I'm very excited to recap some of our World Dairy Expo results with Senior Holstein Sire Analyst and Manager of the Showcase Program, Kevin Jorgensen. Kevin, thanks for joining us today. 

Kevin Jorgensen

Pleasure, Ethan. You're getting caught up from the excitement of last week. I'm just about to the point of treading water again. It's been a long process to get caught back up. 

Ethan Haywood

Yeah, everyone gets dispersed and we have a lot of events going on World Dairy Expo week in addition to the shows and it feels like we're finally getting caught back up. And it was really a lot of fun to see a lot of cows. I know that you were out on the road that week doing some tours and so was I, as well as seeing cows in the barn and really getting a good feel for the cows and the people that we were excited to see at Expo this week. 

Kevin Jorgensen

It's definitely a long week, but it is the global meeting place of the industry. And we get to see so many people that we don't otherwise see. And as you said, taking those visitors out on farms to our customers and seeing cows in addition to the show just makes for an amazing week for sure.

Ethan Haywood

There were some massive size classes, some record entries, and as you always say, the water was exceptionally deep in some of the shows this week. What were some of the shows that you want to start with? What were some of the classes that we thought very highly of and what stood out to you?

Kevin Jorgensen

We just had a wrap-up meeting for World Dairy Expo yesterday afternoon and record numbers I think 2,602 head had tied in the grounds, record numbers throughout the the show and the great part is we were represented as Select Sires incredibly well throughout the show the biggest increase of any of the shows we had this year at World Dairy Expo was a Junior Holstein show And that's our first show as you go into the week. So I'm going to walk us through the week. You know, we get to the Junior Holstein show and on Sunday afternoon, big increase, about a 10% increase in the class sizes this year. Great participation. We had 46 top 10 finishers through that first show on Sunday night and Sunday afternoon. Five class winners. They were sired by 14 different sires. So to me, that was the really exciting part is, that we don't have a one trick pony that just goes out and dominates the show. We have the ability to have a multitude of different bulls out of Showcase. And even sometimes it's not even a showcase bull that sires a daughter that does incredibly well. So when I look at that, the bulls like 7HO16104 EYE CANDY, 250HO16498 HULU-RC, 250HO14579 HANCOCK, 250HO16115 PAZZLE, 7HO13839 TATOO, 7HO14477 WARRIOR-RED, 7HO15325 HANANS, 250HO12961 DOC, 250HO15322 HANLEY, 7HO15523 PARSLY, of all things. 7HO14324 BACKFLIP, 250HO15329 THUNDER STRUCK, 250HO15397 HOMECOMING, and 7HO13730 UNDENIED. So some of those are still in the Showcase lineup. Some of them are pre-Showcase bulls. But I think the fact that they were able to do so well is really, really exciting. Then when we get to the big classes, or the big at the end of the day, you know, Oakfield Tatoo Tender-ET (EX-95), she was the grand champion at last year's Junior Show at Expo. She was reserve grand this year. Again, came back and won her class, but an incredibly deep show also in the intermediate champion we had reserve and intermediate reserve and honorable mention in the the young cow classes and they were sired by TATOO and DOC so that was pretty exciting as well and and bred right here in Wisconsin by Nick Sarbacker and his family so that show kind of set us off for the beginnings of the week that we had a really great start. A lot of diversity all the way through. Then we get to your show, as a Jersey enthusiast yourself. And I think we really had an amazing show there as well. And you feel free to jump in on any of this that you have. I think it's really exciting. This was the first premier sire banner that 7JE5032 VICTORIOUS has got in the milking cow classes at World Dairy Expo. And he had a dominating day. Five-year-old he was one, two, three had four different class winners but he was a situation where he just had a huge day again we ended up having a great great success in that show. He had 40 class winners by 10 different sires and four class winners. And they were all VICTORIOUS daughters. So, I mean, you see them every day. But the fact that that bull can at 11 years of age wins his first banner is he just continues to make the right kind of cows and they age like fine wine. 

Ethan Haywood

Yeah, it's so cool to see him do that at eleven years of age. Herby and I, when we were down in Ohio for August proof, sought him out and gave him a scratch on the head out in the barns. He's healthy and great looking and continues to do his job. It's impossible to pull him out of the lineup because of his demand worldwide. And to see people continue to have success with those daughters is an awful lot of fun.

Kevin Jorgensen

Yeah, I don't remember what the quote is somewhere that the rumors of my demise have been vastly overestimated. But I mean, we hear rumors all the time that VICTORIOUS is dead. No, he's not. He's still available, doing great. And so that was really exciting for him to do that. Additionally, you know, bulls like 7JE1088 COLTON, 7JE1486 FIZZ, 7JE1705 MAGICIAN, 7JE1808 RECKLESS, 14JE725 CASINO, 7JE1605 MR SWAGGER, 7JE590 ACTION and even 7JE1163 IRWIN in the production cow class. So, I mean, that Jersey show was absolutely amazing as it continues to be on a yearly basis. And so, you know, we get into Monday and Tuesday and it just, you know, the good news continued to roll. But the fact that he got one of those premier sire banners in VICTORIOUS I thought was really really significant. We got to the Ayrshire show get another premier sire banner 9AY133 REYNOLDS was our second premier sire banner and so that was very exciting in those breeds as well so it isn't just Holsteins and where we've had success then we get to Wednesday afternoon and Thursday and we got to that red show and despite the rumors that everybody says that the Red breed is is maybe in trouble or whatever. Again, I tend to say no. When you looked at how good that show really, really was. And so in the case of the red show, we had 42 top 10 finishers, four class winners, 10 different sires again. So even in the red program, which is a subset of both Showcase and the Red and White program on the show side of it, we did extremely well. To me the HULU-RC daughters, the oldest daughters are about summer yearlings of when he was out first available in the marketplace and had the winning summer yearling, had the fifth place summer yearling. He had five top ten finishers. So, I mean, I think he's off to a good start in terms of where we see his influence. And obviously, we've got several HULU-RC sons. As I said to a lot of our international visitors last week, I think we know how to use the bull. I think he's got to get used on strength, on power. And if you do, I think he put some really neat combinations together. And there were several of those daughters that stood out. And I think if we use him right, I don't think that if you put him on all the Avalanche*RC blood that he's going to give you exactly what you want. But if you use him right, I'm really excited to see what he's going to do. And then just another side note to that, you and I got to see those as we toured Siemers Holsteins. HULU-RC’s first brother, the oldest brother, is 7HO16387 HANX-P. They're starting to calf, folks. 

Ethan Haywood

They're calving, and they have got some udders on them. 

Kevin Jorgensen

They've got beautiful udders. I've seen them on multiple farms. And so if the influence of Siemers Lstr Hanan 33317-ET (EX-91-EX-MS) is any indication of her first son and then a bull-like HULU-RC that's brought it into the red world, I'm really excited about what he was able to do. The third premier sire banner that we had is not a surprise. I think it’s his fifth one is 7HO14477 Mr Blondin WARRIOR-RED-ET. You know, won the heifer show again with a pretty substantial margin. He won it quite easily and he still makes those winning heifers had a lot of cows, too. And but to me, the interesting part was, is there were several top five finishers and as far as 7HO15427 ROMPEN-RED. Had a second place winter calf that did extremely well. Had the third place milking senior two-year-old. So, I mean, he's having his influence. Rager, the cow at Milk Source, was third in class. She's just a cow that everybody admires and loves. Won at our state show. So as we went through it was a lot of stalwarts like those bulls we just mentioned but then 7HO12587 DIAMONDBACK continues to do extremely well you've got 7HO15210 JOURNEY-RED who had a great year yet last year. Those two cows came back and we're top five again 7HO15601 RON BURGUNDY-RED, 7HO14458 ARTISAN-RED previous Showcase bull that the last two here that that didn't have a second career but we sold semen on them made great cows for their customers and the artisan rides there was two of them one was a class winner and then to finish out the day in the age cows we've got Premium Apple Crisp Lilly-Red (EX-95) and she was reserve grand of the whole shooting match again to Golden-Oaks Temptres-Red-ET (EX-92) who ended up ultimately being supreme champion at the show so the red show just had a had a great day as well and another banner so we were really really pleased. Then you get to Thursday afternoon and Friday and that's when everybody's getting all geeked up the the excitement builds and in the black show, again, just some real neat nuggets that came along. And certainly at 36 top 10 finishers, four class winners again, and by 13different sires. And to me, the most exciting one was in that fall calf class. There's a 250HO16490 LOMBARDI daughter. Has big ties to Showcase for a multitude of reasons. She's owned by Butlerview now, but bred by Todd Stanek. They gave us bulls like 7HO13730 UNDENIED and 7HO12593 UNION and several bulls in the previous Showcase lineup. But yet this LOMBARDI calf's mother is the full sister to UNION, Our-Favorite Endless-ET (EX-95). So it goes back to that family both ways. The other cool part is those were all resulting of five embryos that went through Todd's dispersal, bought by Synergy Dairy who's got several bulls in Showcase we 250HO17435 KICKSTART and and a couple bulls being picked up so it's people that we had ties to and then obviously the heifer went on and she won at the Wisconsin state show and was the winning fall calf at World Dairy Expo so a bull that we've seen a lot of really good heifers he's done really well but he's an active bull right now that I think he's maybe one of the most underrated bulls in our lineup. He's high conformation in Canada. He's got the right casings. He has a different pedigree with that Locket side on the bottom side of the Roxy’s. So to me, that was really exciting to see that calf come out and do so well. Some of the other bulls that really had a big statement, and I wish he was still here, but we're going to crow about it. EYE CANDY had an incredibly good career in the Showcase lineup. Unfortunately, his career was cut short and losing the bull. But he had five of the top ten summer junior two-year-olds. And that's about as old as they're going to be coming out into the milking classes. And he just came out and made a big statement. And that was very, very exciting for us to have a bull like him that did so well. HANCOCK in the three-year-old classes, they were really, really well represented. HANANS had a couple of top 10 finishers. And as we move on into the day, and those TATOO daughters, again, they were all over the show. They were in the heifer classes. They were in the cow classes. A bull that's had such a great, great career. I mean, a whole lot of hope that someday he still gets a banner. And I think he continues to have heifers doing well. Just had an amazing day. And then we get to the production cow plots. And our newest millionaire sire in King DOC, We just celebrated that here about a month ago at our Global Conference, comes out in the production cow class with Peace&Plenty Doc Jubie16-ET (EX-95). Won the class. Very excited for our collaborators at Showbox Sires with Tim and Mike and Milk Source Genetics. She's the mother of JINX that's in the Showbox lineup. And this all synergistically fits together. So to have that cow come out and do what she did, I think was really exciting. Now, I left one cow out. I'm going to tee this up to you, Ethan, because you talked about a cow that I think turned as many heads as anybody at the show. 

Ethan Haywood

There's a cow that I think is becoming somewhat of a social media star. And it's funny because daughters of this bull continue to be our favorites out on the freestyle tours that we do. And that is the 7HO15085 PARFECT cow that turned an awful lot of heads at this show this year. 

Kevin Jorgensen

Yeah, MD-Locuscrest P Zurinah (VG-89), a cow that Chip Savage owns, and it's kind of been the cinderella story of the summer. I kept hearing about this cow, that there's some cow in Maryland that guys need to keep an eye on, and she had her debut at Harrisburg, and won her class and quite frankly that cow came into the the junior three-year-olds and it was like okay it's her and everybody else and just an amazing cow bred by some great Premier Select Sires customers in Maryland it's a big pedigree the mother that when when the cow was bought she had two unscored dams well they're 91 and 90 now and then it goes back to some winter manor breeding so it's a really cool story And that cow just took on just a persona of her own. And the crowd kind of went crazy when she, went out, she got pulled out for intermediate champion. She was honorable mention intermediate champion. So again, we talk about crossover bulls all the time, but I think, you know, PARFECT’s not part of the Showcase lineup per se, but he certainly is on the, on the top side. We've got several PARFECT sons that, we have brought into the Showcase program and a cow like that, it proves that he's a bull that can do a lot of things right. And just as you said, as we went out on farms and look at the cows that really turn people's heads or the comments we get from producers, he's a bull that continues to be at the top of people's lists. And I think for him to start to do that, he had a fifth place finisher last year at Madison as well. So this isn't the first cow by PARFECT that's been a top five finisher at Madison. But to come out and dominate what was an amazing class of cows, I think just kind of put a bow on the whole week in terms of what the daughters of Showcase sires and Select Sires daughters in general had for the week. And I remember sitting at the show years ago with Dick Chichester and we would sit and watch a few classes together. And he'd always talk about the fact your problem, Kevin, is you don't have one bull that does all this. You've got 10 or 12 or 14. And that's really what we want. And as I mentioned earlier, not every one of the bulls that we bring into the Showcase lineup end up having a second career. What really matters is, are they making cows that people like? I talked to Jeff King, and they certainly had two HOMECOMING daughters that did really well in the junior show, and he said, I love these cows they got big rear udders and when they calve again this is still about results in the barn it's the the show stuff is is an added bonus but how we've configured this program of the the cow families the bulls the the traits that we select for first and foremost, we want them to make great cows. I can't always predict what the market is going to decide, whether they accept that bull or not, or whether the data when they get milk and progeny justifies him having a second career. But at the end of the day, if these daughters come to your farms and they perform, that's really, at the end of the day, all we're really most critically concerned about is do they make great cows? 

Ethan Haywood

Absolutely. And as we talk about the future of the Showcase program, and you mentioned that you really want it to be this dual threat. You know, it was within 48 hours where I saw PARFECT’s in the show ring and then I walked a herd on the way home and saw one that's predicted at 40,000 pounds as a two-year-old and pregnant and ready to ready to cycle in for a second lactation. You know, cows that can do it all, dual purpose. What do you see as the future of the Showcase program? What is that going to look like? What are you excited about? 

Kevin Jorgensen

That's a great question, Ethan. We've got a lot of really exciting bulls coming through the rest of this year and next year. Again, that Synergy cow family, there's just a bull that just got picked up this week that goes back to a different family that we haven't tapped into in the past. It was a bull that actually goes, traces back to one of the original DOC daughters, Cedarwal Jitters-ET (EX-90-2E). And it's a grandson of him. And he's a really exciting bull that's going to be coming in just arrived to Select Sires. Obviously, Siemers continue to take our combinations of those two cow families and doing different things. Lambda Paris still has a couple of sons that are that are just picked up and soon to be released. We also have some 33317 sons are still coming yet. But I think when we look at bulls that have been the most successful in 2025, it's 250HO17567 PALDWYN and 7HO17700 HINGE. Those two bulls have gone just at tremendous uptake. I appreciate everyone's patience because I know both of those bulls tend to be in tight supply. People are clamoring for the semen on them. And if I can find more bulls like him, certainly want to do that. The other side that I'm really kind of excited about is what's calving. The PAZZLE, certainly those daughter tours that we had on farm, he had a winning winter yearling in the Junior Holstein show. that cow, those PAZZLE Daughters just stick out. They were easy to find. We had them at all three of the farms that we took our international visitors to. They're pretty easy to pick out. And I think in some respects, he's a better udder bull than PARFECT is. I think they're not going to milk quite as much as young cows, but you just see such greatness in those young cows. I think he's going to have a real successful future moving forward. And as I mentioned, HANX-P, they're starting to calve. The PARFECT’s, 7HO16116 HARDY’s, we had a couple of those at Siemers Holsteins that are starting to calve. So we've got a whole wrath of bulls coming here in 2026 where those daughters are starting to calve to the next wave. And I'm really excited to see what those daughters cab in. And actually the first HULU-RC daughters will calve about the first of the year. The daughters that we used, they resulted from early release meetings to make those six or seven sons by HULU-RC that we have. Those four, those full sisters are going to start to cap. And it's kind of exciting to see what they're going to look like in 2026. So all things considered, Ethan, I think the future is really, really bright within the program. The sales justify it. We've got great support and we really appreciate everything that everyone does. I think it's a nice combination between us and Tim and Mike in the Showbox program so that we're covering all the bases so that those that appreciate high Type can find it in any combination. 

Ethan Haywood

Well, we appreciate all the work and selection going in on the front side of this program so that you can find bulls that bring the high type and traits that you want, but also can bring those health traits, those fertility traits and those production traits to help our producers make the cow that they want of the future. It's going to be very exciting winter with everything that is going to calve in and we're going to see some new, stars among our old dogs. I think it was a very successful Expo and it's always fun to have a lot of high ranking, but it's especially special when you have some of the daughters of these classic stars of the program going up against daughters of the young guns and have so much competition within those classes. Just so much fun to watch and we appreciate the work that you guys do with that program. 

Kevin Jorgensen

Well, appreciate the time to share it, Ethan. It's always fun to recap a really, really successful week. 

Ethan Haywood

Thank you again to you and the Sire team for all that you do. Thank you to our exceptional barn crew and lab crew and shipping crew down there in Plain City and up in Westby, Wisconsin, making sure that things get done and so that we can have all these great daughters on the ground. Thanks to all of our teams that participated and made the travel to Expo to be involved in farm tours and trade shows. And all of the various World Dairy Expo events, our Select Sires and cooperative teams tend to get themselves very involved, and it's a long, hard week. And it's so much fun to celebrate that with our producers. So thank you to everyone within those circles. Thank you for tuning in. We will talk to you next time on the Select Sires podcast as we continue to bring you more stories, information, and details from the dairy industry. We'll talk to you next time.