20072009.gif){kind=small}
PAGE 4
COVER ~ CONTENTS ~ ARCHIVES ~ CREDITS ~ LINKS ~ BACK COVER ~ CONTACT US
Whippet Best In Show Winners
Putting together a reliable list of all Best in Show winners in a breed is much more difficult than you might think - in fact, it’s impossible if you want the list to be complete. Even AKC does not have all the necessary information, and to find what’s available you would have to spend weeks going through the AKC records at their library in New York. So far nobody has been able to do that.
Best in Show was first recognized as an official award by AKC in 1924. (There were BIS winners even before that, but then it was an informal competition and could be won by e.g. a dog that had been defeated in the breed competition the same day.)
In the first few years the AKC Gazette reported BIS results from only about half the shows, which means that some early winners may forever be lost to history.
This is what’s currently available:
For the years 1924-1943 I did research at the AKC library and have details of all the BIS winners published in the AKC Gazette.
For 1944-1955 Popular Dogs magazine published names of all BIS winners at all AKC shows.
From 1956 and onwards the dog magazines, starting with Kennel Review, have published annual statistics over the Top 10 winners in each breed and group, based on the number of defeated competitors during a calendar year in Breed, Group and BIS competition.
If a Whippet won an all-breed BIS it would almost always place in the Top 10... but there were exceptions, and in more recent years the breed statistics have changed, so that while each dog’s point totals are published, there is not necessarily any information about how many BIS it won, if any.
One day I’ll try to compile a list of all known AKC all-breed Best in Show winning Whippets since 1924, but it’s a very time-consuming project and there is no way to guarantee that the list would be complete. Meanwhile, if anyone has annual BIS statistics from the 1990s to 2000s, I would love to hear from you!
Bo Bengtson
bobengtson@impulse.net
Putting together a reliable list of all Best in Show winners in a breed is much more difficult than you might think -
Best in Show was first recognized as an official award by AKC in 1924. (There were BIS winners even before that, but then it was an informal competition and could be won by e.g. a dog that had been defeated in the breed competition the same day.)
In the first few years the AKC Gazette reported BIS results from only about half the shows, which means that some early winners may forever be lost to history.
This is what’s currently available:
For the years 1924-
For 1944-
From 1956 and onwards the dog magazines, starting with Kennel Review, have published annual statistics over the Top 10 winners in each breed and group, based on the number of defeated competitors during a calendar year in Breed, Group and BIS competition.
If a Whippet won an all-
One day I’ll try to compile a list of all known AKC all-
Bo Bengtson
bobengtson@impulse.net