Westchester Kennel Club 2022

By Amy Fernandez

For decades, the East Coast dog scene was defined by three keynote events: Westminster, Westbury and Westchester. All three of them earned enduring reputations for their classy presentation and hypercompetitive entries. At this point, only Westbury remains in its traditional locale. Westchester was long characterized by the gorgeous Lyndhurst Estate that is now the site of the Westminster KC dog show. Westchester moved to Jersey in 2010 but it has hung onto its traditional date of the second weekend of September. And like previous years, it is the grand finale of a long weekend packed with specialties and group shows.

This year marked its 105^th event and past winners have included some of the most celebrated dogs in the history of our sport. The Scottie, Ch. Carmichael’s Fanfare, earned back-to-back Best In Show wins there in 1963-64. She won Westminster the following year. In 1967 it went to another future Westminster winner, the Lakeland Terrier–Ch. Stingray of Derryabah. Westchester seems to be an uncommonly accurate predictor of future Westminster success. In ‘76 it went to the Irish Water Spaniel Ch. Oaktree’s Irishtocrat. Three years later, of course, the incomparable Bill Trainor handled him to the breed’s first and so far only Westminster Best In Show. The list goes on and includes Ch. Gretchenhof Columbia River (1973), Ch. Dersade Bobby’s Girl (1975), Ch. Registry’s Lonesome Dove (1991), Ch. Salilyn’s Condor (1992) and Ch. Parsifal Di Casa Netzer (1996). That’s just a sampling.

This year Westchester had the bad luck to finally get the rain that had been predicted all weekend. It showed up first thing Sunday morning. The entry, just shy of 1400, was down a bit from last year’s 1567 dogs and the weather definitely contributed to some absentees in that total. On the other hand, vendor participation was back to pre-Covid fighting form and overall, everyone seemed to be more than satisfied with their volume of business over the weekend. And that makes sense. North Branch Park is a lovely site; it’s spacious and accessible. However, despite abundant parking, there was a parking lot tyrant patrolling the grounds doing his best to make life miserable. And that is not the sort of thing that encourages future participation.

Several specialties and supported entries shot some adrenaline into the total numbers, but even that support was a bit uneven. For example, the Vizsla Club of Greater New York pulled a nice entry of 62 while the Delaware Valley Weimaraner Club drew 22 in regular competition and seven entries in sweeps. Here are the other totals:

West Highland White Terrier Club of Greater New York – 22 entries

Irish Terrier Club of Greater New York – 11 entries

Knickerbocker Bull Terrier Club -13 entries (with the British judge Peter Blair calling the shots)

New York Boxer Club – 21 in regular competition and 6 in Sweeps

Pug Dog Club of Greater New York – 21 in regular competition and 4 in Sweeps

Nutmeg Portuguese Water Dog Club – 3 entries

Knickerbocker Standard Schnauzer Club – 20 entries

Chow Chow Club of Greater New York – 21 entries

 Long Island Doberman Pinscher Club – 48 entries

Staffordshire Bull Terrier Club of America – 53 in regular competition and 7 in sweeps

Meadowlands Cavalier King Charles Spaniel Club – 22 entries

Garden State Bearded Collie Clan – 35 in regular competition and 17 in Sweeps

Pembroke Welsh Corgi Club of the Garden State – 19 entries

Predictably, Westchester drew reliably big entries in Goldens (55), Labs (29) Whippets (28) and Ridgebacks (36). And of course, congratulations to this year’s BIS winner, the Doberman GCHS. Ch. Alcher TMac Witchcraft v Gentry.

 All in all, despite the rain and the parking lot tyrant, it was a wonderful day.  Let’s face it, it is impossible not have fun at a dog show. The club deserves our appreciation for making it happen.

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Posted by Liz on Jan 30 2023. Filed under Current Articles, Featured. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.