if there is a mistake, it is mine and your anger should be directed at me.
I would love to give you a link to the rules but i just realised you have to buy them. having said that, i think there are a few people here who will have a copy of the rules. perhaps you can ask them exactly what it says about substitutions.
however, i have been told
- cfa tries to be lenient with international division clubs regarding substitutions as cat fancy is still new and people are still learning the rules.
- everyone is particularly lenient with the HHP class because it's main purpose is to promote spay/neuter, responsible pet ownership and to generate pride in local cats.
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Alicia, this is not a personal issue and I don't think it should involve you as this show was not organised by FSM. My contention is not with you. We are contending something that happened at the show, so the one who should clarify is the show manager. This is a matter of principle. We're angry with the issue, not with you or the show manager personally.
Anyway, rules are rules. Are we right to assume that for each cat show, rules can be "changed" to be lenient to potential entrants for reasons that you state? In that case, why have rules? Maybe in the future, every entrant should be studied on a case to case basis and rules be tailor made for them. From now onwards, for each cat show, everybody should bring a few cats, do some scouting around and then only decide which ones to enter. Of course, don't forget the substitution fee. More money in the coffers. We would expect the show manager to approve and not show favouritism because a precedent has been set.
What irks us is that we were not informed of such a practice of substituting which was in fact already in effect. Otherwise, we would have substituted one of our entrants with another cat (with totally different physical characteristics such as colour, name, sex, markings, etc.), which was in better condition, at the recent show. We would most certainly have done the swap with our "below form" cat which we already knew would end in a disastrous outing for him.
We've enquired from some people and they are surprised that such a thing could be done. They said that the cat should have been disqualified or entered in an honorary capacity as it was entered after the closing date. The actual entry should have been deemed to be absent. People may think we're sore losers but if the shoe was on the other foot, we would like to see whether that person will take it lying down. Yes, we don't deny that catshows should be fun. We did have a lot of fun but it was marred by this incident. I'm sure winning is important to everyone, otherwise, why enter a contest. That's why we (our show team) have dumped a lot of time and resources on our cats. Most certainly, not to lose to a "phantom" entry. If everything was in order, the other cat was properly entered and it won, we would not have brought up this issue.