Recently on Nubian Talk there was a comment on the impact of Dear-Heart’s “Omar” with the wish that had he only been collected and promoted he could have had a similar genetic impact as Frosty Marvin. I felt it was important to put his impact in perspective, having owned him for most of his life, with only 11 offspring registered from him before coming into the GOLDTHWAITE herd, which produced 62 registered offspring over the 8 years we used him here. He has impacted herds across the country, and has had many line-bred offspring winning GCH, BIS, and in the top lineup at Nationals for the past several years. The ‘07 National Champion was a double grand-daughter of one of his sons, and the beautiful Saada does who dominated the top lineup at this years nationals all go back to him through his son “Othello” and his great grandson “B’lou’s Man”. Two of his son’s have sired the winning Jr Get class at Nationals, both Lunar & Merlin.

Goldthwaite Merlin was not only a son of Omar, but out of one of his SGCH grand-daughters who not only made the line-up at National Shows but won the National Show production awards. Merlin was his last son born, a full brother to Othello and to SGCH Goldthwaite Jewellia - also a top ten production doe. Currently Merlin has the greatest impact in our herd, having sired over half of our milking and aged brood does, and most are already GCH & SGCH. He is also strong in the background of almost all of our does, including our 1^st pl 3 yr old SGCH Briannca at last years Nationals. (we did not show milkers this year in Sacramento.)

However, and this is the point I wish to make as we primarily breed on doe lines, he did not begin to do all this by himself! His pedigree was a hodgepodge of genetics - albeit good ones - mostly of the old Oregon lines strong in the 70’s & 80’s. He was only 2.7 % inbred, with none of the contributors even making .5%, the top one Tam-a-Rock’s Nero at 0.46! However Nero - a line-bred Hallcienda Alessandro son and Frosty Marvin (0.05%) did connect back in with the pedigrees of the does in my herd. He also goes back to Hildago, Indian Rock Scotty, Hurricane Acres, Oakwood Macarthur, and Beckwood so connected with all those lines.

Every animal in the GOLDTHWAITE herd goes back to the very first doe registered in my name - Goldthwaite Bonny Babe. At the time “Omar” entered the picture, we had line-bred Bonny to her son from a Frosty Marvin son - Caravelles Fame & Fortune, going back over and over to Oakwood Macarthur, Hurricane Acres Messengers Ton & Penny Royal, Milkywhey Garry, Chief of Evania, Tony of Evania (7x crossed in Redwood Hills Diplomat) the sire of Manzanita Houbigant - as well as Beckwood’s Hello-Happy New Year who was also behind Antony and Frosty Marvin.

These were all the same animals behind Bonny Babe - who was line-bred Evania thru Beckwood and Springhaven on the top and Hurricane Acres Messenger Ton, Oakwood Macarthur and Tony of Evania on the bottom, along with some old good but lost Oregon lines.

We kept 2 daughters from this Bonny Babe breeding to her son, Bonny B’Lovely and her sister Luscious. We were also using a fine buck Goldthwaite Bon Chapeau out of a Nero daughter (from a ½ sister to Bonny and a Bonny Son). He was throwing gorgeous udders and GCH does, and breeding him to Lovely we came up with a doe Goldthwaite Bon Bon who was built like a table, flat & long & wide, milky & great udder - with a beautiful head but the only short ears we had ever come up with, and too short in the legs for my liking.

Along came “Omar”, a gift from Joy Southard of the Dear Heart’s herd who was retiring and dispersing the herd. She sent me a card to that effect saying he was the best buck she ever bred, his dam was an 18# milker, and to come get him! Omar had gorgeous breed character, literally flowed uphill, and imprinted that back into my Bonny line through Bon Bon & others. He did not have much strength in the rear however, but my wide, level, powerful does carried that off. I opted not to offer him AI as he needed the kind of does he found here in Bon Bon, Lovely, Luscious & Montgomery (another Bon Chapeau daughter). They are the does behind SGCH Lady Juliette, (Merlin’s dam), SGCH Talapoosa, SGCH Clematis, SGCH Maya, & SGCH Jewellia - all top producing and excellent LA scoring does. And these are the animals behind every animal in our herd today. I can visit herds across the country or look at the herd brochures and recognize the Bonny head and the long level dairy style from the influence of these does from the cross of the Bonny line with “Omar”. Together they have stamped a portion of the Nubian breed, and without the cross with the many interwoven ties back to the fine oldies, “Omar” could have been just another buck.