THE EXHIBITION GREYHOUND 97 -Gundogs, Terriers, Etc.-Inevitably Splits, It May Be As Well to Set out What It Implies

e Exhibition Greyhound could the promoters, Messrs. Pape and Shorthose, have in 1859,when they staged their dog show in Newcastle, that to be the seed from which a great ‘doggy business’ was y to grow. Even less could they have foreseen their modest provincial effort as the forerunner of Cruft’s and the Kennel shows at Olympia and elsewhere. s noteworthy that this first show in Newcastle was confined to mters and setters, although, numerically, having regard to the coursing kennels in the country, greyhounds must have been widely kept. By the time the appeal of a dog show had spread , and particularly when Islington followed Newcastle’s foot- eps, we find owners of coursing greyhounds beginning to take an interest in showing. To such an extent, in fact, that several began to accept it as an interesting summer sideline during coursing’s close Having regard to the coursing origin of nearly a11 the entries in the now firmly established greyhound classes, the promoters naturally turned to knowledgeable coursing men to act as judges. In the early days of the shows one of the most sought after of judges was Mr. C. Randell. Himself a great lover of coursing, a member of the exclusive Altcar Club and a Waterloo Cup nominator to boot, he was also the owner of one of the most successful kennels of his day. The names of such celebrated greyhounds as Riot, Ranter and Rival, to mention but three, were household names in the coursing world. Mr. Randell, in short, was typical of the type of person originally engaged by the show promoters to judge their well-filled greyhound classes. A man, moreover, of unimpugnable integrity and with a great and deep knowledge of the breed and its hereditary purpose. Yet another example of the specialist judge with practical knowledge of , the breed was Mr. R. A. Brice, the famous Waterloo Cup judge who officiated in the show ring at the Crystal Palace on more than one occasion. 96 THE GREYHOUND Coursing owners were naturally quite happy to enter dogs from their kennels, to submit the winners of great stakes for the critical judgement of men like Randell and Brice. The token of their confidence in such judges can best be gauged by a consideration of the type of dog that comprised the entries in the period 1860-90. At the famous Islington Show of 1862 we find among the entries none other than Judge, the winner of the Waterloo Cup in 1855, a red dog by John Bull out of Fudge. He had clearly proved himself a really first-class greyhound on the field-the true test of a working breed-and yet his owner was still prepared to submit his dog for a good judge’s critical opinion of its symmetry and conformation. That Judge was as good a specimen of the breed on the score of looks and appearance as he was a brilliant performer on the field is borne out by the fact that he was awarded a second prize in a big class. At the 1861 Waterloo meeting the honours in the Cup and the Plate were won by the white dog Canaradzo and Sampler respec- tively, the latter, incidentally, having been narrowly beaten in the final of the Cup the year previously. The fact that the owners of these two proven performers, Mr. Campbell and the Earl of Sefton himself, were in no way loath to enter them in competitive exhibition is telling tribute to their confidence in judges of the calibre of Messrs. Randell and Brice. Nor was their own appraisal and opinion of the shapeliness and physical perfection of their dogs very far astray, for Canaradzo won a first at Islington and followed it up with a second at Leeds, while Sampler, too, was also ‘among the money’. Nor were Judge, Canaradzo and Sampler the only dogs to add show-bench laurels to Blue Riband victories. At the big Newcastle Show of 1887the famous breeder Mr. E. Dent entered his celebrated bitch Bit of Fashion, which had divided the Cup honours in 1885 with Miss Glendyne. Bit of Fashion, incidentally, became the dam of the great Fullerton. The records have it, too, that Bit of Fashion appealed as much to the show judge as she did to the coursing judge, for she duly took the red ticket! But one could go on almost without end quoting examples of proven performers in the field, winners of big stakes, figuring prominently in the awards at the big summer shows during the period 1860-90 under such judges as Randell, Brice, Walsh and Harding Cox, a state of affairs that prevailed simply because the judges in question were practical coursing men who judged according to ‘working type’. As this conception of ‘working type’ is probably the rock on which the views of showmen and working men of nearly all sporting breeds Yellow Printer (by Printer's Prince ex Yellow Streak), winner of the Irish Derby 1968, and one of the fastest greyhounds of recent years The First Lady of the Track. Dolores Rocket (by Newdown Heather ex Come on Dolores), the winner of the Derby and St Leger 1971 and the Puppy Oaks I 970 1 Goldent (by Top Linen ex Norma Dent), one of the outstanding stayers of the Australian Track Black Top (by Top Linen ex Classy Jane), won the Harold Park Classic and New South Wales St. Leger, Wentworth Park 1962. In twelve months contested twenty races for seventeen wins and two seconds THE EXHIBITION GREYHOUND 97 -gundogs, terriers, etc.-inevitably splits, it may be as well to set out what it implies. To judge a breed by working-type standards involves a deep knowledge of its particular purpose in the canine world, be it to follow a line of scent and tenderly retrieve game, or to point and set the position of game unseen, or to face and set a fox or badger in his den, or to match the speed and nimbleness of a hare until it escapes from sight. Each of these functions requires and calls for special physical and mental faculties with which the appropriate breed is naturally endowed. One could not expect a greyhound to set a covey of partridges, nor a Labrador to course a hare, nor a fox terrier to retrieve a snipe. Their innate natural talents for their particular function have been developed by generations of selective breeding. Their physical form and shape has been developed and moulded by man to afford the particular breed its best opportunity to exploit its natural gifts and talents. To judge by a standard of working type implies attributing importance only to those qualities which would affect the dog’s ability to carry out its special functions. From the point of view of the greyhound-breeder and owner, only those factors that could affect a dog’s performance, its ability to run fast and far, would be regarded as faults. For this reason, and this reason alone, such matters as cow hocks, bow legs, splay feet, heavy shoulders, a weak, light back, thin thighs, were regarded as venial faults, the type of conformation that would induce any practical coursing man to cull the unfortunate animal from his kennel. Viewed against the background of such impediments to a dog’s ability to gallop fast, such matters as prick ears, coarse head, light eyes, kinky tail, were utterly unimportant. As, indeed, also were such good ‘show points’ as a long, graceful neck, a sleek, fine coat, an elegantly tucked-up loin. As long as judges operated on this standard of working type, as long as there were people like Randell and Brice, who appreciated the basic qualities of the breed and who had the practical experience to evaluate conformation by reference to the extent to which it added or detracted from a dog’s pace or stamina, then clearly the greyhound classes at the increasingly popular dog shows were not only well filled but, moreover, with dogs that had already made a name for themselves in the field. It is history now that this state of affairs continued until about 1890 and that certainly by 1895 the owners of coursing kennels had virtually ceased to send entries to the shows. The reason for this unfortunate decline of interest is as simple as it is sordid. Sordid-for basically the reason was finance. I00 THE GREYHOUND in 1916, was regarded as an altogether exceptional size of dog at seventy pounds. The average show greyhound of the period was a much larger and heavier dog, not infrequently thirty inches at the shoulder and tipping the scales at seventy to seventy-five pounds. As for its extreme fineness of coat, as we have seen in an earlier chapter, the original coat of the greyhound varied through the ages in accordance with the climatic conditions of its habitat. The greyhound in England probably became predominantly smooth-coated in the early nineteenth century, when Lord Orford’s experiment with the bulldog cross and the increasing use made of such sires as Major and King Cob had finally ‘fixed’ the smooth coat on most of the breed. But there are varying degrees of smoothness, ranging from the smoothness of a smooth fox terrier to a coat of almost ‘mouse-like’ texture. Practical coursers, save for personal preferences and pre- judices, gave little more thought to coat texture than they did to coat colour. The showmen, on the other hand, set great store by the soft mouse coat. For, engrossed as they were by external appearance, what could possibly show off the elegant and graceful lines of a beautiful greyhound better than a soft, sleek coat that had been gloved and groomed to gleam like silk? But the exhibitors’ zeal for exaggeration of greyhound qualities and attributes, desirable in themselves, but highly undesirable when sought at the expense of other attributes, and therefore at the expense of balance and proportion, did not end with size and coat texture.

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