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 con- fidence 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 him- self, 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 grey- hound 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. A deep chest or brisket is one of the distinctive features of the breed, and for the practical reasons set out in an earlier chapter. The showmen, however, demanded a deep brisket so exaggerated that it would have caused any coursing dog to bump the ground when fully extended over uneven places. Every coursing man, too, set store on a ‘good front’, but the limit was reached when emphasis was put on fronts so gun-barrel straight and elbows so tight-fitting that they must inevitably have hampered any semblance of free movement in the gallop. Finally, perhaps the greatest fetish of the show ring is that the greyhound must be shown with lean shoulders. As galloping naturally develops muscle in the shoulders, the simple solution was that the greyhound destined for the bench must not be allowed to gallop. The extent of the other artificialities which surrounded the prepara- tion of the exhibition greyhound, the extent to which the breed’s natural Dumose and Dractical endowment was sacrificed to sheer superficial beauty of iorm, may be gathered from the following advice to exhibitors: THE EXHIBITION GREYHOUND I01 ‘Exercise also plays a prominent part in conditioning. Fanciers, if they gallop these breeds uphill constantly on the steep side and walk them down, will find that it develops the ribs, loin, and hind- quarters, but not their shoulders; should they, however, put flesh on their shoulders, this can easily be reduced by sweating. Put the dog in a fairly hot room with cold wet towels over every part of the body except the shoulders for about a couple of hours each day for three or four days. As this is rather weakening, a new-laid egg beaten up in milk, given after the operation, will be found beneficial.’

At this point the cleavage between the working greyhound and the show greyhound was complete and fundamental. Perhaps the most convincing proof of the finality of that cleavage, of the existence of the two types of greyhound, of the coursing and show types, is the fact that the latter has now built up a long line of ‘aristocrats’- Kennel Club champions-comparable in their own right to the famous winners of the Blue Riband of the Leash. The twentieth century opened with the black and white Champion Go Bang, and the history of the show greyhound in the period 1900- 14can be summed up in the show bench careers of such outstanding specimens as Champion St. Blaise, Champion Cornish Maiden, Champion Larchmont King, Champion Honours Easy, Champion Wilvey Flight, Champion Fabian Way, Champion Scotswood Sylph and Champion Stray Park Seiiora, all of which, in the very nature of things, were not too far removed in blood from the current coursing stock. The years between the First and Second World Wars, 1918-39, saw the almost complete reliance of the show breeder upon ‘bench blood’, on the dogs and bitches that had made their names at the now important shows. A practice that is borne out by the following family tree : Champion Venton Flyer, 1922 Champion King+ of Venton, I924

Champion Primley+ Satyr, 1926 Champion Beau Geste+ of Loven, 1928 The latter, bred by Mr. A. L. Benjamin, and possibly the greatest and most successful exhibition greyhound of all times, certainly of the twenty years’ period 1918-39, had no fewer than ten Challenge I02 THE GREYHOUND Certificates to his credit although on the score of physical perfection the bitch Champion Leading Lady, who won eight Challenge Certificates between 1925and 1927, would not have been without her supporters. But beautiful and graceful specimens as were these champions of yesteryear, and, indeed, as were the many greyhounds that qualified as full Kennel Club champions by winning three Challenge Certifi- cates under different judges since 1945, the fact remains that their honours were largely gained in competition with others of their own breed. There are those, however, who hold that the hallmark of a really great specimen of any breed is to be chosen as the best of all breeds on show. Such an honour implies not merely that the animal is better than the other members of its breed (which conceivably might be a poor lot) but that when pitted against the best specimens of all the other breeds it was so close to the standard of perfection that it literally could not be faulted. If winning the award for Best in Show at one of the great national shows is the acid test of an exhibition dog, then one wonders what description is apt for the dog that wins this supreme award at the largest and greatest of all shows-Cruft’s. That such an honour is the hallmark of canine perfection, that it is the supreme accolade that any dog can win is, surely no overstatement. That in 1956 this honour went to a specimen of the greyhound breed, to Mrs. W. de Casembroot’s and Miss H. Greenish’s Champion Treetops Golden Falcon, lifts it above all the other famous champions of the past sixty years, from Champion Go Bang to date, and stamps it as the nearest approach to physical perfection that the exhibition greyhound has yet attained. There are, of course, formalities to be observed in the exhibition of greyhounds, just as there are in coursing or racing them. Briefly, they may be summarised as follows. Before any dog can be shown it must be registered with the Kennel Club, 1-4 Clarges Street, London, WIY 8AB. The charge for the registration and naming, if both sire and dam have also been registered, is f4.60. When a registered dog changes hands the transfer must also be registered with the Kennel Club on its appropriate form at a fee of E4.60. It is noteworthy that a greyhound already registered with the National Coursing Club must be registered under the same name at the Kennel Club, with the letters G.S.B. added. When it comes to the organisation and control of dog shows, the Kennel Club is virtually in the same position as the National Coursing Club and the National Greyhound Racing Club are in relation to coursing and greyhound racing. It is, in short, the governing body of THE EXHIBITION GREYHOUND 103 , the business and exercises some of the same powers in the same way. It can, for instance, disqualify and debar from any Kennel Club show a dog which has been shown at an unauthorised show. The procedure for entering a greyhound registered with the Kennel Club for a show is quite straightforward. The secretary of the show will, on request, send a show schedule setting out details of the classes, their definitions, names of judges, together with an entry form. On receipt of the entry form, duly completed by the would-be exhibitor, together with the appropriate entry fees, the dog is duly entered. The subsequent procedure will depend upon whether the show is a ‘benched’ one or an ‘unbenched’ one. At the former the exhibits are assigned to little cubicle compartments on a long bench, judged, and then led back to their bench for the public to admire for the rest of the duration of the show. At an unbenched show the focal point is the judging ring, or rings, and it is the responsibility of exhibitors to parade with their entries at the appropriate time in the appropriate ring. In between times they have the task of trying to make their dogs comfortable until they are required in the show ring. It will be appreciated that the show ring is the factor common to both types, and it is quite literally the stage where all is won or lost. It most clearly behoves every exhibitor to ensure that his dog knows how to present itself to the best effect; that he knows literally how to ‘show off. Greyhounds, by temperament, are not naturally shy or timid. One has but to watch their bold keenness on the coursing field or on the track to appreciate that fact. But there is a world of difference between boldness in the open, in the heat of passion for the chase, and in a large hall with all its echoes and odd noises, and with photographers flashing their bulbs at every opportunity. In such strange, unnerving surroundings sporting dogs in general, and the greyhound in particular, can be reduced to a state of unmanageable timidity. The first essential before entering one’s greyhound for a show must, therefore, be to ensure that it knows how to behave there. This it can only learn if it knows what to expect and what is expected of it. The key to the problem is, therefore, to train and school it at home in conditions that will approximate closely to those that it will meet at the show. To begin with, it can be walked round, up and down, in a large room. It should be approached and handled by persons other than the owner until it can suffer this necessary experience without Pulling away and trying to hide behind its owner. Practice and training alone can achieve the desired result-a rock- steady, confident extrovert of a greyhound. That some people can 104 THE GREYHOUND achieve this quicker than others is undoubtedly true, but there is no unfathomable secret in winning a dog’s confidence; just patience, understanding, kindness and more patience. When one’s entry will walk smartly round a ring without pulling at its light lead, or shying away from other exhibitors, and particularly from the judge-then it but remains to train it to perform the piPce de rksistance of the show ring-to strike, and retain, a beautiful pose. In this respect a study of the efforts of some of the professional handlers at our big shows will be more enlightening than anything that the would-be exhibitor will ever read. But schooling for the show bench, no matter how well done, would be worthless if the animal itself was not in a condition to be worth ‘showing off‘. That there is a vast difference between show condition and coursing or racing condition has, of course, already been made clear. For the sake of the person wishing to show his greyhound, the following hints on achieving show condition may be of interest. As the aim of the greyhound exhibitor is to preserve and emphasise the soft, elegant lines of the breed, it follows that it must not be too ‘finely drawn’ and that, although exercise is necessary to stimulate the muscles, it must be restricted to prevent that muscular develop ment which would mar the symmetrical contour. Most successful exhibitors, in fact, base their preparation of a greyhound for show on grooming. For this purpose, constant use of the dandy-brush, the hound glove and, finally, the chamois leather can be relied upon to produce the ‘bloom’ that is the hallmark of a well-turned-out greyhound. But, as with coursing and track greyhounds, so, indeed, with all livestock, ‘bloom’ or ‘condition’ on an animal-call it what you will --stems initially from the inside and from the state of its digestion, which, in turn, depends upon its diet. The food that sustains the coursing or racing greyhound most clearly will similarly nourish the show dog, but, in view of the latter’s less energetic demands, in sensibly reduced proportions. Cod-liver oil is a must in the rearing of most animals. In the case of the adult greyhound a spoonful once a week in its evening meal will help to give that air of infinite well- being that has as its most manifest sign a bright eye and coat with a sheen like silk. That it is possible to produce great coursing greyhounds, winners of the Blue Riband, for instance, that still measured up to the highest standard of physical perfection was proved in the old days by the success of such dogs as Judge, Canaradzo, Bit of Fashion, etc. That even today there are dogs every whit as talented and every bit as graceful is proved by the career of such as Bill Ekin. A THE EXHIBITION GREYHOUND 105 brindled dog, Bill Ekin not only was a winner on the coursing field but he also held the track record at White City over hurdles. More- ever, on the show bench his conformation was adjudged superior to his less versatile rivals, for not only did he win his class but he took the Challenge Certificate too. In more recent years such great coursing dogs as Dee Rock, for instance, were of such remarkable conformation and symmetry that I have little doubt that had he been exhibited he would have pressed the ‘single purpose’ exhibition types hard indeed for the top honours. Perhaps the most notable all-rounder of recent years was the famous Endless Gossip. Mr. E. Gocher’s brindled won the Greyhound Derby in I952 in the fastest time yet recorded in the Classic 28.50. The following year, in the capable hands of Leslie Reynolds, he was entered for the Waterloo Cup and looked all set for the last four, but, in a long course, found one just a little too good for him in Sucker. So outstanding an all-round specimen of the greyhound breed was Endless Gossip that when he was entered for exhibition he carried off the first prize. Nor was that the end of his remarkable career, for, when exported to the United States of America in 1955, he achieved outstanding success as a sire and, in fact, got, in Big Gossip, one of the greats of the American track. The records of Bill Ekin and Endless Gossip, therefore, are there to encourage those breeders who aspire to the all-rounder. That it can be done is beyond dispute. History, however, suggests that it can only be achieved by the good coursing/track dog challenging its show kin, and not vice versa.