If you're new to TICA, you may not be familiar with the format of the show reports.  The table format that we use in all the show reports was invented by Ron Klamm many years ago when he and Wendy became editors of the TICA Trend.  When we started publishing show reports on the TICA Mailing List in 1995, we simply adopted the same format.

Each report starts with the name of the club and the date of the show, followed by the list of judges.  For each competitive class, the report contains a table of final awards.  A complete show report would have eight tables: Kittens, Cats, Alters, HHPs, HHP Kittens, Advanced New Breeds (ANB), Preliminary New Breeds (PNB), and New Traits (NTR).

Each row in the table contains the name of the cat, the breed of cat (TICA uses two-letter breed name abbreviations), and the final awards won by a particular cat.  The cats are listed in decreasing order of total score, with the highest scoring cat appearing on the first row, and so on down the list.  The last row in the table is the lowest scoring cat that won any finals (there may have been some cats that did not win any finals; they are not listed in the report).

Each column in the table contains the finals awarded in a particular judge's ring.  The rings are identified by the judges initials at the top of each column.  The columns are arranged in the order that the rings were listed in the catalog, which is usually the order that the rings were numbered on each day of the show.

In Allbreed (AB) rings, the final awards are indicated by numbers: '1' means Best Kitten/Cat/Alter/HHP/HHPK/ANB/PNB/NTR and '10' means 10th Best <something>.  In Specialty (SP) rings, the longhair and shorthair final awards are listed in the same column.  The symbol '2S' means 2nd Best Shorthair and the symbol '2L' means 2nd Best Longhair.

At the bottom of the table, the number of entries present and competing (commonly called the "cat count") is shown for each ring.

JUDGES:   Gloria Stephens (SP) Don Caruthers (SP) John Pierre Demers (SP)
          Bill Becker (SP) Pam Barrett (AB) Mark Coleman (AB)
          Ellen Crockett (AB) Joe Edwards (AB) Louise Van De Water (AB)
          Linda Jean Grillo (AB) D'Ann Kovic (AB) Nancy Nolen (AB)

KITTENS                              GS DC JD BB PB MC EC JE LW LG DK NN
Azala Rune Of Khamsin           AB   3S 1S    1S  3  1  1  2  3  6  7  3
Hemingway Of Jayswhiskers       SO   5L       1L  4  6  6  1  5  5  2  1
Miaghy Shawnee Bobino           ES   2S 4S        6  9  5  6  1  2  5  8 
Tailsoluv Making The Headlines  SI   1S 2S 2S     2     2  3        6  4
Naturskats Sabrina              NF   4L    5L     5     3 10  6  1     2
...
        Allbreed/Longhair Count      19 17 19 18 27 28 27 29 26 28 27 29
                Shorthair Count       9 10  9 10

So, what can you learn from this?  Well, at a glance, you can see that "Azala Rune of Khamsin" was Best Kitten in Show and it's an Abyssinian (AB).  This kitten won 11 finals out of 12 rings, including two Best Allbreed Kitten awards and two Best Shorthair Kitten awards.

Exhibitors like to study these reports to see what the competitive climate is like.  If you are thinking about campaigning for a breed award, for example, it is useful to know whether there is another cat of the same breed (possibly in another region) with which you are in direct competition.  From studying show reports, you can decide which shows you want to enter and which ones to avoid (if you want to avoid going head-to-head with your competition).  You can estimate whether a little extra effort will make it possible to reach your goal or whether you should save your money for next season.

Exhibitors also like to study these reports to see how their friends are doing.  You can see who has a dynamite cat that they are taking on the campaign trail.  From show to show, you can see which cats are rising in the ranks and which ones are slipping.

The show reports provide us with enough information to calculate an estimate of the points earned toward regional or international awards for each cat.  It's not exact, for a number of reasons, but we can get pretty close.  For instance, the official standings include one point for each cat defeated in breed, division or color, whichever is highest, if the cat did not make a final.  That information is not in the show reports.  In general, that doesn't make a difference for high-scoring cats, since only the best 30 scores for kittens (best 50 scores for adults) are counted when adding up the regional/international score and those points are all from finals.

TICA Breed Abbreviations

Notes
[1] 'HH' is used for all Household Pets, regardless of coat length.
[2] Advanced New Breed (ANB) Category
[3] Preliminary New Breed (PNB) Category

Valid May 1, 2012.