There has been a bit of controversy over the winning 'whippet' in the racing at Shanes Castle. As we made it clear when this was raised a few weeks before the show for 2011 we were not going to have the whippet racing KC registered whippets only. This would have been changing the rules too close to the event and disadavantaged non KC registered whippets who had been conditioning them for the event.
Because of this Matt, and even the whole fair and organising team have been subjected to anonymous abusive criticism. This of course would probably not have happened if this particular dog had been beaten by those owned by the critics.
Anyone with any sense must realise that Matt or any other racing organisers cannot argue the toss with someone who says his or her dog is a whippet. Size solely doesn't really come into it and in fact may not be any advantage - look at Rose Mc Coy's small dog and China too is no giant.
As far as I can see there are three solutions:
1. If challenged, at the show - not anonymously and on these forums - the owner should be prepared to meet the challenge by saying how he or she thinks it is a whippet. And in fact I would like to hear this from the owner of the Shanes winner.
2. If he or she has no proof that the dog is a whippet then the Sporting Whippet Club could arbitrate for future eligibility. At one time the KC used to have a classification for interbred retrievers and in fact in my own breed the golden retriever one of the golden winners of the retriever championship was a dog that had labrador ancestry two generations back.
Other dogs of unknown parentage were brought into a pedigree by three senior judges making a ruling that the dog was of that particular breed. Something similar could apply so that good working whippets without pedigrees could be deemed eligible.
3. OR we can simply run races for KC registered whippets only and Non Ped whippets.
Whatever way we go forward and I think the decision is really that for the majority of whippet owners we will take into acount reasonable constructive ideas and discussion. As I said before that is the way forward -anonymous personal abuse is not!
Albertj
Because of this Matt, and even the whole fair and organising team have been subjected to anonymous abusive criticism. This of course would probably not have happened if this particular dog had been beaten by those owned by the critics.
Anyone with any sense must realise that Matt or any other racing organisers cannot argue the toss with someone who says his or her dog is a whippet. Size solely doesn't really come into it and in fact may not be any advantage - look at Rose Mc Coy's small dog and China too is no giant.
As far as I can see there are three solutions:
1. If challenged, at the show - not anonymously and on these forums - the owner should be prepared to meet the challenge by saying how he or she thinks it is a whippet. And in fact I would like to hear this from the owner of the Shanes winner.
2. If he or she has no proof that the dog is a whippet then the Sporting Whippet Club could arbitrate for future eligibility. At one time the KC used to have a classification for interbred retrievers and in fact in my own breed the golden retriever one of the golden winners of the retriever championship was a dog that had labrador ancestry two generations back.
Other dogs of unknown parentage were brought into a pedigree by three senior judges making a ruling that the dog was of that particular breed. Something similar could apply so that good working whippets without pedigrees could be deemed eligible.
3. OR we can simply run races for KC registered whippets only and Non Ped whippets.
Whatever way we go forward and I think the decision is really that for the majority of whippet owners we will take into acount reasonable constructive ideas and discussion. As I said before that is the way forward -anonymous personal abuse is not!
Albertj
a breed of dog recognised by the KC as containg nothing but Whippets in its make up :thumbsup:
