| I think you have your answer whether you realize it or not? Ginrin is judged for ginrin and as a good example of the 'underlying variety' . And as you know, in the smaller sizes, the pattern is very important as is the finish. So how could your fish NOT win!? It is a killer example of a fish with good ginrin, great pattern and great finish! Size? Not too likely as the fish is finished and if it were to grow it might begin to effect the luster and pattern negatively.
I think this points out that often missed fact- each koi has it's individual moment in time. Some fish look great at certain size and age. Others take more time to reach that same level of finish and beauty ( within that sizes description of beauty). So babies and very young adults are more about color, pattern and finish of thise elements, and mature adults are more about conformation, quality and quality of color and pattern.
Ginrin tends to overwhelm and distract from traditional elemental reviews of normal wagoi. In a sense, ginrin can reveal weak skin but it can't improve good skin- only distract from it. What you really want is a fish in perfect balance between quality ( in terms of color and skin) and the strength of it's ginrin scalation. This is very hard to achieve. JR |