East Lancashire trainers celebrate Crufts Best of Breed prizes (From Lancashire Telegraph)
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East Lancashire trainers celebrate Crufts Best of Breed prizes
5:00pm Monday 11th March 2013 in News
Melanie Harwood with poodle George and Glynis Marsh with pointer Zak
TWO trainers are celebrating after their dogs beat off hundreds of entrants to be crowned Best of Breed at the international dogs’ show Crufts.
Melanie Harwood, from Blackburn, and Glynis Marsh, of Gisburn Road, Barnoldswick, saw their pets take the top prizes in the poodle (miniature) and pointer categories respectively.
Mrs Marsh said that receiving the prize was the culmination of 40 years of hard work, having been to the show many times before without a Best of Breed winner.
The retired civil servant said her pointer, four-year-old Zak, a working dog, had been a ‘slow developer’.
She said: “To win the Best of Breed takes a mixture of having a good dog and biding your time until it’s ready.
“Zak was a very slow developer but he’s coming up to his peak now.
“He is a working dog as well as a showdog.
“He works on grouse and is a dual-purpose gun dog.
“It’s quite rare for a working dog to do so well in the show categories.
“There were around 260 other pointers entered so he had a lot of competition.”
She added: “He had to stand in a relaxed by show stance, to prove to the judges that he had all the qualities and attributes that the Kennel Club specifies.”
Zak, entered under his kennel name of Sharnphilly Redshank For Ratchda, impressed the judges at the National Exhibition Centre in Birmingham in the gundog group on Saturday.
Miss Harwood’s poodle George was entered under his kennel name of Ch Minarets Secret Ambition, and enjoyed similar success in the toy and utility section on Friday.
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