Grand Champion Niigata Shinkokai 2021
Maruyama has done it. For the second time in history, the breeder has reached the highest podium. Quite an achievement. The 102 centimetre long Kohaku is nothing less than a brute force, but that was not always the case. Yet the unlikely champion managed to secure the Grand Champion title at the Shinkokai Koi Show in Niigata this weekend. How far has she come?
Yamatoya Showa
Do you remember the Showa of Yamatoya who became Grand Champion at the All Japan Koi Show? Do you not? Ok, then let me refresh your memory. Kimiho Shiraish is the name of a former breeder who is now retired. In 2009 he did the unimaginable. With a ShowaYamatoya was actually a Kohaku breeder (Just ask Tjaard van Balen), he managed to enter the very highest stage and play Grand Champion.
An unprecedented achievement, all the more so when pictures leaked out of what the fish looked like in previous years. Even though the Showa had been handed to many on a silver platter, the majority would not have chosen it as a companion in their pond. Say it yourself...
Koi Zanmai and their glimpse of the future
We were lucky that KoiZanmai still gets around, takes pictures of everything that is loose and much more that they also keep their archives. When Johan Leurs heard about the GC and went through his roll of photos, he found a photo of Maruyama's new GC when it was in its fourth year of life; yonsai as they call it. This can be compared to the middle photo of the Showa above:
What struck me - looking through the ripples of the water - was that the fish really didn't seem all that promising. Johan Leurs recalls from his own memory that the fish was not even in the top 10 of his stable at the time; perhaps not even in the top 50. Whoever would have wanted to buy the fish back then would have paid a reasonable price, I expect. The kiwa, the end of the red pattern on the back, does not look very promising, vulnerable maybe. The pattern on the head is jagged.
Updated
A simple glance at the Koi reveals that some cosmetic corrections have been made. Although the red can also go away by itself, for example on the head. We see this more often with for example Tancho Kohaku We often see that the dot on the head gets smaller or disappears. If you look closely at Johan's photo above, you will also see that the red dot next to the eye has disappeared from the GC state portrait.
Everything must be right or a Kohaku 102cm
But these are small changes that happen everywhere these days. In the base, of course, the fish must be right, the skin quality and growth that this two-coloured has experienced are impressive and unexpected. It has never been an outcast, but the Kohaku Maruyama has become the darling of the breeder.
The Mauyama Kohaku went via the dealer Narita to his customer Pan Zhicheng. So in the end, there were three people who believed in the Koi. However, the Koi had chosen not to express it too early. Maruyama won once before in 2005 with a Showa and thus had to be patient for sixteen years to see himself crowned. You can imagine what an honour this is for Maruyama. For me it means;
SO IT CAN BE DONE! You can come across a Koi that can surprise you if the basis is right and the circumstances in which the fish grows up are no less than excellent and you do not let yourself be distracted too much by the pattern. You have to be lucky; maybe so, but it is not suspicious that precisely Narita, who has bought and raised so many champions, also managed to buy this Koi before it charmed others.
