FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                    

June 9, 2000                                         

Horse Prairie Ranch Feeder Steers Win Grand Champion in Great Western Beef Expo Contest

DILLON, Montana – June 9, 2000 - In the 31st annual Great Western Beef Expo sponsored by Colorado State University and held in Sterling, Colorado, a pen of five steers from the Horse Prairie Ranch (HPR) in southwest Montana shared, with the George Rober Ranch of Sedgwick, Colorado, the Grand Champion prize for “Carcass Price/LB.”.  The Great Western Beef Expo is an annual contest focusing on 1) feedlot performance; 2) carcass data; and 3) progeny performance for fifteen breeds.  Golden Link of Firth, Nebraska, who supplies the HPR with purebred and full blood Braunvieh bulls, cosponsored the HPR entry.  The HPR breeds Montana’s finest Black Angus cows with Golden Link Braunvieh bulls for superior carcass performance.  The HPR is the largest Braunvieh/Black Angus commercial breeder in the northwest. 

In addition to tying for Grand Champion in the Carcass Price/LB. category, one of four categories (others being LB. Feed/LB of Carcass Gain,  Average Daily Carcass Gain, and Net Return) of awards at the Beef Expo, the HPR was also among the “Top Ten” ranches for “Net Return”.  All five of the HPR steers graded Choice. “It is one of our primary objectives at the HPR, said Ken Duncan, whose family owns the ranch, to achieve a high percentage of Choice grade carcasses for our beef.  We, typically, average in the ninety percent range and I was pleased to see our pen at the Expo achieve100% Choice grade”.

It is appropriate that, like the Braunvieh breed, which can trace its pure strain of genetics to 800 B.C. in Switzerland, the manager of the HPR, Urs Schmidlin, is also from Switzerland.  Urs has stated that “it is especially rewarding for me to be managing the Braunvieh/Black Angus cross at the HPR. Who would have imagined that when I came to America to become a cowboy that I would end up managing cattle whose roots are in Switzerland”!  The Braunvieh breed is known for naturally marbling and for producing high-grade carcasses.  In addition to focusing on carcass quality, the HPR also raises only natural beef, i.e. beef that has not been exposed to antibiotics and not been implanted with growth hormones.  The HPR sells its natural beef to Coleman Meats of Colorado, the nation’s largest natural beef operation.

HPR half blood heifer calves are bred to Braunvieh bulls and sold to seed and commercial operators, such as DeBruycker Charolais in Dutton, Montana, who wish to influence other breeds with Braunvieh genetics.  Debruycker Charolais has consistently won awards at the Great Western Beef Expo.  The HPR will sell 150 half blood heifers this year.