JUDGING OF CLASSES

White dog.  Beautiful long elegant head with a classical "English" profile, well filled but unexaggerated and with a correct bite.  Wicked eye set off by ears on top of his head.  Deep bodied dog with a good topline and powerful neck.  Excellent back end and tidy compact feet.  Movement very good, sufficiently so to challenge his competition, with the elusive virtue - drive.  It has been a pleasure to see this dog develop from a very attractive puppy to the substantial dog he is today.  Bred "in the purple" as we used to say, the word that now comes to mind is "Power".  Handled with her usual skill but to her total exhaustion, by Hilary Harrison.  My eventual choice for Supreme.

William's closest challenger, for my money, was Ch. Klinghill's Blade Runner of Lusahn.  A mature dog (I do not use the term in any derogatory sense, it's good to see dogs in the ring that have retained their qualities into maturity.  So rarely seen in the ring in other countries), with plenty of quality although not quite the outstanding virtues of my winner, particularly as regards his head.  Moves very well.

Runaround Pete:  White Dog.  Good head of similar type to White Night, but for my choice, slightly better ear placement than White Night, although neither dog has his ears right n top of his head.  Excellent profile and length of head.   bite correct, piercing eye correctly placed.  Neither dog is yet fully mature, although both are much of an age with the more mature Skies The Limit.  This lack of maturity shows in less powerful neck in both these dogs.  Runaround Pete has the better construction and conformation than White Night.  He has a good front and, in particular, a better hind construction:  he moves well.  He has a short back, and by a margin, a better topline.  Runaround Pete's burden is his tail carriage, but today his other virtues were sufficient, in my eye, to overcome what is, in this dog, a relatively minor, if ugly, fault.  A generally good class, although somewhat variable in quality.  We still need to look at construction carefully in our stud dogs, and stick to the well made animals.

St. Christopher:  Red Brindle dog.  Very well made, mature dog.  Good head with beautiful profile.  He can use his ears well, but like many mature dogs, he doesn't always choose to.  Correct mouth.  Straight front.  Excellent topline, a short back and well muscled hind leg.  Front movement is fine, hind movement very good with excellent drive, but again, he doesn't always choose to show it.  To my mind an excellent dog who has perhaps been unfortunate in his competition over the last three years.

David Jones's choice, Franceskow of Klapnel, was using his ears very well, but to my mind had not such a well filled profile.  His was certainly the best movement in the class.

One dog forward.  Grissebasse Kykkeli Kokkos of Lusahn - Winner

A white bitch of obvious quality, but not today in show condition.  She has a serious undercarriage!  Has a good well filled bitch head and correct mouth.  Nice profile.  Her ears are well placed and she carries them well.  Perhaps despite her undercarriage she moves pretty well, but without the drive that she has had.  And why do I say that she "has had" drive?  Because Carol and I judged her together in Holland in 2002, when she was younger and altogether a more spritely character.  We gave her Best In Show in Holland, so I trust she is now breeding something rather nice.

A very attractive white bitch.  Classic head in profile and fill, again in the English mould rather than the exaggerated "American" style.  Substantial body with an excellent topline and heavy enough bone for a bitch.  Although she has a good bend of stifle and more than adequate hind flexion this is not reflected in her hind movement, which is not her greatest virtue.  Would road work improve things, I wonder?  She is not yet fully mature but her quality is clearly apparent and, on the day, won this class with something in hand.

Black brindle bitch.  An interesting case in point for all ringside judges, including me!  She did not impress me from my seat behind the judge's table when my fellow judges gave her the class for bitches under two years.  But when viewed up close she improved considerably.  She has a very pretty head with a lovely profile and a strong elegant neck.  Her body is not yet mature, but has plenty of promise, and she has a short body with an excellent topline.  She seems in the ring to be a small bitch and perhaps that is no advantage, despite the Breed Standard.  She moves well.  The only competition in this class was Ch. Riberts Irish Mist, a strong-coloured red bitch.  Much more mature than Full Circle, but I felt she lacked the winner's quality.  Seven dogs were entered in this class, with five absentees.  Although I am sure there were good reasons for all the missing dogs, (perhaps they were away breeding champions), it is nevertheless true that "You won't win if you don't go".

Both dogs had been seen by me (St. Christopher - Coloured Dogs, Full Circle - Coloured Bitches).  I considered that although both dogs were of excellent quality, St. Christopher had to win on maturity.

It is always difficult to select the nominations for the Best Mover during judging of other classes;  the judge never knows whether he could be left high and dry with too few animals from which to select his ultimate winner.  This year was no exceptional and we were given a large number of contestants for the Tom Horner Trophy.  Our solution was to shortlist the real contenders.  Was this rough justice?  Some exhibitors may have thought so, but every handler was given the opportunity to show off his dog's movement in the normal way.  Those dogs that crabbed, or failed to move adequately were not short listed.  And the moral?  If you are hoping to win a movement prize, make sure your dog is trained so that it responds in the show ring!  

Front movement is a virtue that is relatively straightforward to recognise, and, it seems, not too difficult in the modern dog to maintain.  The dogs selected by both of us moved well viewed from the front, but for my money Bullrage Franceskow had hind movement par excellence.  Drive was the word.  Even a dog that moves slightly close behind (and most bitches do), that has a great drive, will win in my book.  Drive is quite largely a function f powerfully flexing stifle joints, which Franceskow posses and uses.  His picture is complete by parallel action.

I had earlier judged Skies The Limit (Imported Dogs), but had not gone over Mr Ice.  Mr Ice has a good profile and a well filled head on an elegant neck.  He has a correct bite and a strong underjaw.  A piercing eye with ears carried well on top of his head.  Plenty of substance, a short back with a very good topline, but for me his body is just not shapely enough to carry him in competition with Skies The Limit.  I was happy to make Dajan Skies The Limit at Sandawana a Dog of the Year.

Forward for this class were Grissebasse Kykkeli Kokkos of Lusahn (Imported Bitch), Kingstonia Full Circle (Coloured Bitch, and Ch. High Lawn Tabitha of Matabola (Bitches over Two Years), all of which I had judged earlier.

On the day Tabitha was clearly outstanding.  She is a dog of the highest quality and my fellow judges and I were obviously in agreement that she was a worthy winner.

The competition was between Ch. Skies The Limit at Sandawana, and Ch. Highlawn Tabitha of Matabola.

A little background:  The Southern African Trophies are essentially modeled on the Trophy Show of the Bull Terrier Club.  The Regent Trophy was presented in 1933 by Dr Vevers for the Best Dog or Bitch first shown in that year.  Raymond Oppenheimer was adamant however, that dogs and bitches should nt  (indeed, could not) compete against each other - dogs could be very very good dogs, and bitches could be very god bitches, but that they were simply not comparable.  For this reason he presented the Ormandy Trophies, one for each sex.  Dogs and bitches did not, and do not, compete against each other for the "jugs".

We in Southern Africa have the same dilemma, and Oppenheimer's argument still has some virtue.  But time moves on.  There are no longer the extremes of type that one found thirty years ago, which makes comparisons between the sexes somewhat more straightforward, but we still have the situation of a bitch which may be a very good bitch being compared with a very good dog with essentially masculine virtues.  For me, on this occasion, Tabitha has all the feminine virtues, but Skies The Limit has the better make and shape, and his movement, particularly his hind movement, is superior.  The ring presence of Skies The Limit is such that any other dog has a particularly hard row to hoe.  he comes into the ring and says "I'm first".  We agreed with him.