Thanks, especially to Dick Benbow, for your replies.
Now I have a better image of what to look for in Tosais.
I agree that skin quality can't be apreciate properly in pictures.
Still I doubt whether it is a "reliable" and constant character or not.
In my limited experience, some tosai with very nice skin change in
time to worse, and vice versa. Talking about adult Koi, all you
know how easy is to ruin a good Koi if kept in unsuitable conditions.
And, how a relatively short stay in a mud pond can do miracles.
Therefore, I wonder whether skin quality in Tosai (either good or bad) is a good predictor of future skin quality.
Talking about conformation, Dick explain several interesting points that can be assessed in Tosai to get and indication of potential. Thanks, Dick.
Body conformation in adult Koi is however rather elusive concept to be objectively appreciated, I think. Well, most of us would agree identifying examples of bad conformation, for instance pot-belly, lack of lateral simetry, and so on.
But, in a group of Koi lacking any major conformation deffects, how to decide which one is the best? Right now I still have in front of me the wonderful 2004 calendar of Koi Water Barn featuring champion Koi from Sakai. I know, I must replace it. Well, I can see big differences in body shape among Champions, even between pairs of Champions in the same Koi Show and very similar classes (almost same size). These include differences in body volume, thickness of the ozutsu, size and shape of pectoral fins, shape and proportions of the head, ...
Furthermore, if you take for example Nichirin no. 409 (37th ZNA AJKS in Kobe) and have a look at, say page 111 for example, you will read comments by different judges appreciating some of the champions, next to the Koi picture. The point is that in this page you will find that comments for Koi no. 4, 5 and 6 (going top to down and left to right) include respectively "wonderful body conformation", "an ideal body conformation", and "the body conformation is wonderful". More or less the same comment for three Koi of roughly the same size (2 are 75 Bu, 1 is 80 Bu) but showing quite different body conformation.
Diego |