Page 53 - Koi Net - On-Line Koi Magazine - Issue 5

for three to four years and which is becoming bigger
and more beautiful.

Predicting a Grand Champion, however, is more than
just pushing your favourite preference forward. The
Shinkokai is a Koi show organised by the association of
breeders and dealers and those growers especially
have a completely different view on a Koi than a
hobbyist. You could say; another eye! As a hobbyist you
take into account the Sumi that hasn’t yet developed,
you take into account the skin if it doesn’t reflect good
quality because you expect a Grand Champion to
reflect the best. But a grower will mainly focus on that
target of a metre. How many Go Sanke in the world can
you grow above that one metre limit? There are only
ever a few! Proof is readily available. Go back to the
Takigawa Sanke which won the All Japan Koi Show in
Adult Champion.
2002. It was the very first Go Sanke who defied the
100cm limit and who won the title. That was an
incredible 16 years ago! You would expect that in those
16 years the growers would have succeeded in
obtaining that one metre limit as standard, but you
would be wrong. A metre Go Sanke still remains unique!
By the way, paradoxically, the Sanke, known as the
Takigawa Sanke, was actually from the birthplace of the
108cm Showa that swam there on that Thursday. It is
because the grower of that Sanke around the turn of the
century – Toshio Sakai (Matsunosuke, Isawa) tried
everything, but failed to grow that Sanke over 100cm.
At a certain time he asked Momotaro if he would allow
it to spend a season or two with him in the big pond.
And at the All Japan 2002 he was presented with a Koi
of over a metre. As thanks, Toshio Sakai gave a present
to Momotaro of a Sanke called Mako. This Koi
immediately brought new blood to the Momotaro lines
Mature Champion.
and partly from crossings with this Koi and its offspring
the current Sanke and Showa-lines of Momotaro arose.
Left:
Candidate No. 1 So the 108cm Showa that we saw there in Tokyo 2018,
108cm Momotaro Showa actually owes a debt of thanks to the Grand Champion
whose origins can be traced Sanke of 2002. So that’s a brief background to my first
back to a Sanke called candidate.
Mako which was given as a
present to Momotaro from We come to my candidate number 2 and there’s also an
Toshio Sakai, adding new
blood to the Momotaro interesting story linked to this. It is another Koi that I
Sanke and Showa of today. have followed for a while with the first real face-to-face

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