Upper Valley Guernsey cow ‘Sassy’ wins big at World Dairy Expo

Just across the state line into New Hampshire, a farm in Meriden is home to cows, sheep, a couple of barn cats and one particularly high-profile heifer.

Sassy is a Guernsey who has racked up various awards on the regional circuit with junior handler Sara Forman. In October, with the support of their farming community in Vermont and New Hampshire, the pair capped Sassy’s big year with two ribbons from the World Dairy Expo in Wisconsin: for first place in their class’s junior show and second place in the open show. Sassy was also named the reserve intermediate champion of the junior show, earning her a coveted banner in addition to those ribbons.

Vermont Public’s Jenn Jarecki recently spoke with Sara and her mom Angela Toms to talk about Sassy’s success. Jenn opened by asking Sara about how her involvement in the 4-H program led to showing cows. This interview was produced for the ear. We highly recommend listening to the audio. We’ve also provided a transcript, which has been edited for length and clarity.

Sara Forman: My oldest sister, Emma, started us off in the showing world by showing some sheep. And then, my oldest brother Noah followed with getting a pair of steers from the local Taylor Brothers Farm right up the road from us. And then my older brother Will got us into dairy showing. And then, specifically with Guernseys, as my great grandfather immigrated from Ireland and had a very relatively large Guernsey farm out in California, and we sort of, you know, took up the Guernsey breed, and then we started getting a little bit deeper into that dairy showing, and then I sort of just followed and really fell in love with the community that we have. It’s been a great experience since then.

Jenn Jarecki: Sara, will you walk us through the experience of showing Sassy at an event like the World Dairy Expo? Like, what are you feeling in that moment?

Sara Forman: I have had an incredible experience being able to show Sassy at the World Dairy Expo for the past three years when she was a winter calf and now a senior 2-year-old. And each year it’s a completely unique experience. But the one sort of similar feeling that you will, you know, sort of have when you are stepping onto the ring at the World Dairy Expo is just, you’re incredibly nervous.

It’s an arena that’s normally used for hockey, concerts and other sporting events, and you’re stepping onto this national scene. But at the same time, the excitement that you feel that you’re here, specifically with me, with a homegrown cow who I’ve worked with, my family has helped. We’ve had so many other people to get us to where we are. It’s sort of, you know, really a feeling of proudness for our community and how we got there.

When you start showing them on the colored shavings — which is sort of how we refer to the World Dairy Expo — how I would phrase it is, nothing else matters. You are on the shavings and you are only focused on the judge, your cow, and yourself and how you’re going to be presenting them just to make sure that she’s shown to the best of her ability.

Jenn Jarecki: Angela, what is the experience like for you of watching your daughter out there?

Angela Toms: It’s pretty cool. I think I’m probably more nervous than Sara is when she’s out there, but at the same time, I have complete faith in Sara’s ability to do the best job out there, certainly far better than I could ever do.

And Sassy actually is, she’s one of those cows that likes to show. So, she’s generally out there, lifting her head up and kind of taking it all in too. So, I get nervous, I get excited and I’m definitely proud. And at the same time, we feel incredibly lucky to be able to have this experience.

Jenn Jarecki: I’m glad you brought up the cow of the hour because I would love to ask you both to describe Sassy for us. So, Angela, let’s start with you. You know, why do you think Sassy is such a spectacular show animal? And then Sara, I’d love to hear, you know, your descriptions of this animal that you have spent so much time with.

Angela Toms: You know, some of our good friends have way more judging skills than I would say both of us do, and have kind of helped us understand what is kind of super special about Sassy. But I’m going to tell you what I think is special about Sassy: She’s a really awesome cow. She’s friendly, she likes to show, she leads really easy, and that won’t really get her anywhere in the show ring. But that’s what I like about Sassy.

Sara Forman: Once again, I’m gonna agree with my mom. I am not qualified to really give her specific, you know, pros and cons of Sassy as a cow in like, you know, dairy showing. But just from, you know, being in this industry for quite some time at this point, something that you always look for when you’re looking for a cow is you want them to be very large, want them to be dairy. And when I mean large, I mean tall and long. And that’s one of Sassy’s, you know, biggest pros is that she’s, she’s a big cow.

And then a little bit more on the conformation side, the mammary system really takes the cake for the thing that’s most important. How I like to see it, she’s got one really nice fore on her, there’s a lot of veins. It blends really nicely into her frame on her stomach.

She’s incredibly kind. I spend probably — when we’re at shows — hours just laying with her because we’re both tired since we’ve been up since 5 in the morning. She truly has been one of the best cows I’ve ever led.

Jenn Jarecki: She sounds really sweet. I wonder, how did she get the name and does she live up to it?

Sara Forman: I would say she absolutely lives up to it. She’s very sweet, but if you ever came into our barn, you would see that she is sassy. She will try and beat others to her grain. She is almost the queen bee.

The Guernseys have a demeanor that’s sort of known throughout the breed as just being very docile and kind. So although we say sassy, it’s a really good mix of both.

Jenn Jarecki: What is next for Sassy and your family? Are there any other competitions on the horizon? Why don’t we start with you, Angela, and then Sara?

Angela Toms: Right now, Sassy is in the barn with all her other buddies. She’s making milk; we’re making cheese. She’s bred to have another calf in June, and that’ll bring us to basically our next show season, which will start probably summer of next year. While we have all kinds of hopes of what we’d like to do with her, it’s kind of up to her to see what she looks like, kind of when all this happens.

Sara Forman: Obviously, I don’t think my mom gave herself enough credit, but she has started a cheese company that really only makes ricotta, but there’s a lot of different other variations that spin off of that.

Every Friday we make pizza, and it’s sort of an open invitation to anyone in the town or any of our friends. My mom makes her cannolis. I think that’s the only reason that people come to pizza Friday now, it’s not to hang out with us, it’s only to get the cannoli. So that’s the main focus of our farm right now.

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