Monday at Westminster 2024

By Amy Fernandez

Photo by: photo by: Lisa Croft-Elliott

It’s fair to say that Westminster’s reputation was established on the basis of their OCD commitment to create the perfect show. That sentiment spawned the club’s original decision to teach the world how to run a show. As the story goes, that critical decision was spawned by the group’s experience at the 1876 event in Philadelphia. The defining difference in this deal was that the nitpicking and complaining wasn’t coming from the typical armchair experts. Within months, they put their vision out there and, maybe it’s trite, but truly the rest is history.

So, 2024 is the club’s 148^th attempt to create the perfect the show. And I gotta say their second year in Queens is going much smoother than last year. Fatefully, the weather has been on our side all the way. Cold and rain Friday gave way to mild and sunny for the Saturday show–which was packed. Yesterday, it was cold and rainy. But Monday morning, like clockwork, the weather is back to being very nice. It was little cold this morning, but the sun is out and it is glorious. I’m starting to think that Westminster has managed to crack the code for this too, because thinking back Lyndhurst weather was also strangely cooperative when it mattered.

The Billie Jean King Stadium offers both indoor and outdoor options. And like last year, rings 7-9 are inside, with 1-6 outside. Indoors or outside, the rings are roomy with plenty of viewing space on the floor along with stadium seating. The conformation dogs seem to be doing better on this surface, in contrast to Saturday when dogs were slipping and stumbling all over the rings. However, those green strips on the floor are really distracting the dogs.

Westminster has debugged the entry, unloading and exit traffic flow, so it’s smooth and organized. Also, even though the club is diverting all traffic to their managed route, our little side tour of the park revealed ample free parking–especially on weekdays.

Unlike Saturday, spectators were sparse. Today it was just dog people, which is ideal. No mobs or long lines–except for the Westminster swag.

Today’ Toy entries were dominated by Longcoat Chihuahuas, with 29 entries for Judge Joao Machado from Texas, who truly seemed delighted to see every single dog in his ring. Cavaliers, as usual, turned out in force with a total of 28 for Lee Grogan, a Japanese Chin specialist from Ireland. Unfortunately, he had only three today. Pamela Bruce from Ontario was in charge of Ring Nine.

Hounds, Herding and Non-Sporting breeds were in the outdoor rings with Aussies, Ridgebacks and Frenchies predictably dominating the entries. It was nice to see a strong turnout for some of the lesser known breeds like 16 Mudik. Win or lose, this is an opportunity for the entire world to see your dog. Showing up truly does matter.

Tomorrow should be another great day!

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Posted by Liz on May 14 2024. 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.