A koi show is many things--
1) A beauty contest
2) A live stock exhibition
3) A serious competition
4) A highly educational experience
5) A social event for chapter hobbyists
6) A fund raiser and recruitment tool for new members
7) A sales promotion tool for the industry
You will notice that the first identity of a koi show is A BEAUTY CONTEST!
And ironically the next two (live stock exhibition for soundness of breeding stock and A serious competition) can be compatible with a beauty contest or they can begin to work against the prime directive of a beauty.
Indeed, beauty is in the eye of the beholder but extremes of competition for instance can often lead to a questioning of where the line is.
In the ever stretching effort to create a bigger and more robust show koi we have all come to favor the female entry over the male. The thinking behind this being that the large robust female is so more 'present' and majestic than her thinner, smaller male counterpart. Fair enough.
In this quest for the jumbo female uber- competitor, we do however begin to over look or accept the negatives that come along with a magnified body and huge girth.
this is also the trend and fine but the beginner judge and serious exhibitor must realize that there IS a line where size and its consequences begins to battle the basic desire for soundness and object beauty as based on the standard.
Case in point is the very gravid mature female koi. Female koi are always more robust than males as their anatomy, swollen reproductive tract and general fluid distribution make for a robust silhouette. And when the Japanese first established their shows the traditional autumn show removed all issues of egg mass carriage as females were in post breeding condition.
In the west we were quite innocent as to why koi shows were in the cooler seasons and decided for social and economic reasons, that spring and summer shows were fine for koi. In those days because most competing fish were males ( tateshita) it really was not a major issue.
Today however, with exhibitors bringing large females to spring and summer shows, gravid females are a very large percentage of entries.
I will not go into the dangers of this or the biology involved in this dynamic. Instead, I'd like to focus on the practical issues we face when it comes to the terms of the beauty contest.
Some females carry egg mass symmetrically. And based on fluid retention, age of the egg mass and general shape and condition of the rest of the koi's body, a gravid female can be a very acceptable (even desirable) entry. But not all wonderful female koi carry eggs of that description. Instead we see females carrying eggs very high in the body and looking "pigeon or chicken breasted" or deformed or even ill with dropsy. Other females will only have one side of their reproductive organ filled with eggs. Still others will show lopsided egg masses and masses that look the entire world like a tumor (a definite antidote to the idea of healthy beauty, yet the fish is perfectly healthy-- just not pleasing to the eye). And egg mass always brings in discussions of health issues and deformities such as a bent spine or twisted tail tube. So is a hanging belly acceptable--- are any of these things acceptable?
The answer is yes. But there is a limit to acceptability and there is the reality of what the other competitors look like.
I'm running long here so I'll rest and see if there is interest or observations from others on this subject-- JR