AML Principio's Grand Torino (AKA "Sammy") is a big, bold, outgoing alpaca. He is confident and intelligent, with a ton of presence and plenty of opinions -- not to mention a heck of a fleece. Sammy possesses an exceptional lineage. His sire is the outstanding AML El Duro's Principio, an 8x Champion who has established himself as a prepotent producer of exceptional offspring. This is no great shock, as his sire (Sammy's grandsire) is the legendary Legacy's El Duro, whose unparalleled prepotency was well established before his untimely death with only sixty or so offspring. Principio's dam is no less of a legend -- Miss Clarice, a daughter of the great El Segundo de Royal Fawn, has likewise proven to be one of the most prepotent dams in alpaca history. Sammy's dam is a truly awesome rose gray daughter of the terrific Nic Nac. She is a dual champion in her own right, and she is also the dam of AML El Duro's Enticer, who took reserve champion at his only show, and doubtless would have had an amazing show career had he not been prematurely lost. As a son of Legacy's El Duro, Enticer is Sammy's 3/4 brother. Sammy himself has taken multiple blue ribbons. His daughter, CSAF Peruvian Grand Gigi, has taken multiple blue ribbons and a color championship. With impeccably correct conformation, unbelievable athleticism, excellent proportion and terrific coverage, Sammy is an impressive alpaca to behold. His substance of bone is tremendous, and he has impressive depth of girth and spring of rib. He is built like a tank. Also, he has some EXTREMELY nice fleece. As a yearling, he not only had a solid 17.7 micron AFD, but his SD was 2.5 micron, with a 14.1% CV. That is killer uniformity for *any* color, let alone black. At two years of age, he was only up to 20.9 micron AFD, with a 99% comfort factor. He's kept it, too. At his his sixth shearing, Sammy produced a 22.6 AFD fleece, with a 92.8% comfort factor, and his seventh? EVEN BETTER: 21 AFD, 96.9% CF with an SD of 4.0 -- that is better than most blacks' juvie fleece! His fleece is still good and bright, contributing to his soft, pleasing handle, and, true to his lineage, it is EXTREMELY dense. We now have three years' worth of Sammy cria on the ground, and oh my goodness, this dude can produce. Conformation, bone, coverage, heads, and DRAMATICALLY improved fleeces -- in every color. Check out these histograms: 13.7 / 2.8 / 20.6% / 100% 16.5 / 3.8 / 23.1% / 100% DARK modern grey 20.81 / 4.4 / 21.3% / 95.8% out of our absolute coarsest female. 19.4 / 4.4 / 22.6% / 98.2% (silver grey) His latest crop includes a dark silver grey, modern rose grey and a harlequin ... Sammy is shaping up to have an enormous impact on our herd.

Whisper is a beautiful example of that very rare coloring that stands as one of my absolute favorite alpaca colors of all: the solid silver harlequin. The source of Whisper's harlequin gene will be no mystery to any harlequin appaloosa breeder to review her pedigree. Her grandsire is none other than EL R Peruvian Luciano, one of the greatest sons of Peruvian Platinum and well-known harlequin appaloosa producer. The rest of Whisper's pedigree is an interesting blend of renowned light and grey alpaca genetics. Her sire's dam is sired by Accoyo Grand Master and out of Peruvian Heidi, the dam of well-known herdsire Peruvian Challenger. Her dam line goes back to Peruvian Felix -- a full Accoyo import sire whose name appears not infrequently in harlequin pedigrees -- and Loganberry Von TR, ancestor of Silver Legend and Legend's Challenger of KPR. Whisper was originally brought into our program for two reasons. The first is her very unique, and very rare, coloration. Having started life light fawn, Whisper sheared out silver grey at her first shearing, making her a solid harlequin. This solid harlequin coloring is one of the most unusual manifestations of the harlequin appaloosa gene, as well as one of the only genetic pathways to completely solid grey alpacas. (Whisper does have a couple of small spots on her face, a trademark of the harlequin gene.) The other reason that I wanted to bring Whisper here was her incredible staple length. Her cria fleece had a staple of >7", while her second year staple was 5.5". As breeders select for extreme fineness and uniformity -- as our program does -- staple lengths often tend to shorten, making those animals with the genetics for long staple length valuable additions. Although Whisper's fleece is not extreme in fineness, she has a soft handle, and her fleece should make stunning yarn. In addition to her color and fleece traits, Whisper is an excellent foundation female in her physical traits as well. Her conformation is flawless. She has a beautiful head with a shapely muzzle and full topknot, and her coverage is very good. She has very good substance of bone and nice proportions. With her excellent phenotypic traits and valued Peruvian Platinum genetics, Whisper is an exciting addition to our foundation.