September 2025 NEBRASKA CATTLEMAN 21 Performance Testing The concept of performance testing came to the Forbes when visiting the National Western Stock Show during World War II. With the International Livestock Exposition at Chicago’s Union Stockyards shut down during the war, the American Angus Association moved its considerable resources to the Denver show in an effort to make inroads into the Hereford breed’s western dominance. The Forbes were impressed by the Angus breed, but dumbfounded by show ring selection based on pampered, overly conditioned cattle. With council from a fresh, new quantitative geneticist at Colorado State University, H.H. “Stony” Stonaker, Ph.D., who was trained by Jay Lush, Ph.D., the Forbes learned about the embryonic concept of performance testing, which would become the focus of their professional lives. What Waldo understood from the beginning, perhaps better than anybody in the country, was the concept of contemporary groups, and the best way to evaluate seedstock was to objectively measure the differences between like-managed cattle raised in as close to commercial conditions as possible for “traits of known economic importance and known heritability.” Thus in 1945, the Forbes started putting together a Red Angus herd, with the red cattle being chosen because their success would be that much more meaningful as the black Angus castoffs. Sal recalled that, “Waldo many times talked of the incredible waste of grain going to show cattle … [as well as] the serious negative effects on the optimum productivity of animals that were supposedly superior genetic leaders of each respective breed – in those days, primarily Herefords, Angus and Shorthorns.” Waldo felt that there was no need for new breeds, but “a need for new concepts and more efficiency.” According to Sal, “Waldo wanted to work with a set of cattle that he could use to show what could be done by basing selection on performance testing; cattle that would be appraised for their quality and soundness right off the pasture; cattle in which we would bring out all the good characteristics and not waste time trying to conceal the bad.” Young Sal Forbes in the Big Horn Mountains. Courtesy of Beckton Red Angus. A young Sal and Waldo doing their favorite pastime – folk and square dancing. Courtesy of Beckton Red Angus. The Waldo and Sal Forbes family, circa 1954. Courtesy of the Forbes. CONTINUED ON PAGE 22
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