Crufts 2003
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Mary had an extremely busy Crufts, starting on the Tuesday two days before the show opened when she was asked to go along to meet the press complete with her matador’s outfit and Quincy. It could probably be said that she was the highlight of the press call, with about ten photographers taking pictures for daily publications and magazines. Plus she was interviewed for ITV Central News which was shown the same day and Sky Television which went out on Thursday, the first day of the show.

On Wednesday, the day before the show started, Mary did some rehearsals of her new routine in the Special Events Ring and it was the first chance to try Heelwork to Music on the new Crufts carpet which was superb. Certainly we saw some of the best dog agility at Crufts that we have seen and, for the first time ever,

when speaking to overseas visitors we could say that we had witnessed some of the best of British dog agility.

Mary was now going to forget Heelwork to Music for two days to concentrate on Obedience. On the first day of the show, she was in the Bitch Obedience Championship with Kizzy and the first thing to become apparent was that Judge Sandy Wadhams was marking everything! She was in actual fact marking in one tenths where judges would normally mark in quarters at Crufts so after a couple of dogs early in the running order came out with 18s and 20s, I think competitors who were yet to go were looking forward to it with some trepidation. Mary and Kizzy performed a stunning round of Obedience; certainly it was recognised as one of the best of the day. But, and unfortunately sometimes there is a but, when she was doing positions on the move in the Heelwork exercise she was supposed to take a left turn and put the dog into a Sit position immediately after the turn. When she was approaching this point, the steward told her that the Sit position was coming and unfortunately Kizzy sat on the steward’s command. Maybe it was a bit close, or maybe the command from the steward was a bit heavy, but for whatever reason Kizzy did it.


Mary came out of the arena losing 17.5 marks but from this 8 marks had been awarded against her for the mistake in positions on the move. So she would have lost 9.5 in total for the round which, looking at the rest of the scores, would have been remarkably good. Although we didn’t check, this mark would probably have put her between 6th and 7th place.

On the second day for the Dog Obedience Championships, Mary was once more drawn very early in the running order but there was an added complication because she had also been invited to compete in the special 25th Anniversary Dog Agility Display which was scheduled to start at 10:20 am in Hall 3. Quincy worked an absolutely stunning round and went into the lead losing 12.5 points. She then dashed straight off to the Special Events Ring to join Kizzy to run in the 25th Anniversary event. The Kennel Club had invited one of the very first judges of Agility to officiate in this class, Mr Fred Welham, and also competing was another member of Rugby D.T.C. Julie Skipp.
Both Mary and Julie started competing in early 1980, so they joined all the other old fogies in this display! It wasn’t timed or marked but Mary and Kizzy did a super round and, had it been so, we feel they would have been in either first or second place.

On arriving back at the Main Ring, Mary found that she was still in the lead and remained so until about lunch time when Madge Thompson worked and lost 12.3 marks so took the lead by .02 of a mark !! And that’s the way it stayed until the end of the work.

Stays were completed without faults by Mary and Madge so it was all on scent. As it was in working order Quincy went first and you had to stand at an angle to the scent cloths so from this angle Mary sent Quincy out. He worked some of the cloths, went over a decoy then shock horror !!! he went back to a decoy before setting off once more, got to the right cloth, picked it up, straightened himself up in front of Mary, she took the cloth, he finished and the result was CLEAR. Now was the tense part - waiting. There were probably 15 or 16 dogs before Madge went in to do her scent. But unfortunately all was not good for Madge. Although he did the scent smashing, there were some slight imperfections because the dog came out losing 0.09. Mary was absolutely static - Quincy was the Crufts Dog Obedience Champion 2003!

Her delight could be seen when she danced out to collect the trophy from Mike Davies, the Managing Director of Pedigree Masterfoods, supporters of the event. And of course when she left the arena she was swamped with well-wishers. Folks did ask the next day whether there was a big celebration that night? Well not really, as Mary had some rehearsals to do for the BBC in the Special Events Ring.


So we were now on the third day at Crufts and it was Heelwork to Music Day for Mary. Her first job of the day was at 10:30 am on the Pedigree Stand where local celebrity radio announcer was mine host and he interviewed her, had some questions from the audience, Mary demonstrated some of the moves that Kizzy and Quincy could do and also invited some members of the audience to have a little go with the dogs. This was all very successful as the stand was swamped with people trying to get a look in and this was to be repeated on the Sunday. Over the Saturday and Sunday, she also appeared on a few trade stands which were selling her videos and of course performed her latest Spanish bull fighting routine twice on the Saturday in the Special Events Ring and three times on the Sunday, each time ending with rapturous applause from the audience.

On Sunday night, after the Flyball and Agility Finals it was Mary’s turn in the Main Ring. She was scheduled by the BBC to start her routine at 8:26 pm which was the exact time that they were going live on the programme. For the first time, they had her entering the arena through the Best in Show at Crufts curtains and before she did so the lights went down and the spotlights came on, smoke was pumped into the arena to give it a hazy look and at the appointed moment it was lights, camera, action, go! I would like to explain the routine but you can’t - it was simply superb and the atmosphere was tremendous. I would defy anyone to say who had the most applause - Mary or the Best in Show! How she manages to cope with the pressure on an occasion like this I don’t know but most people just wouldn’t be able to cope. But the star of the show was once more Quincy. It looked absolutely excellent on television but if you want to see the real McCoy, get yourself a Best in Show ticket for next year.
On the Monday after Crufts a television crew from South Korea spent some time filming Mary training the dogs and on the Saturday after Crufts a film crew from Japan are filming for a programme over there.


A Letter From Mary

Where do I start - I have so many thanks to give.

To all the people who gave us ‘good luck’ cards, Crufts would not be the same without them so my grateful thanks. It makes me realise how much Kizzy wags her tail as we had to keep re-sticking them! Now I have often heard it said that the British like to knock a winner down, well I’ve always thought it was human nature and worldwide.

Without sounding too soppy, which is unusual for me, I would like to say that I am absolutely gobsmacked at the response I have received. The ‘congratulations’ cards are pouring through the door which, with entries closing for our show, is really p****** the postman off! I received a pile of ‘congratulations’ cards while I was still at Crufts and tonnes of e-mails and guest book messages on my web site, so who’s really proud to be British - me !!! - and I must be more like all of you in the future so my sincere thanks.

My thanks to Lyn and Jim White for holding pre-Crufts training on Sunday nights. Lyn always gives me useful tips and if I had not bottled out with Kizzy’s attitude on the final Sunday, she may not have stopped on the steward’s command.

My thanks to Shirley Turner and Helen Williams for looking after my dogs at home and well done to Shirley for winning the Mini Agility at Crufts on the Friday with my adopted Sheltie daughter Tina.

My thanks to Peggy Pye for giving her heather to me this year.

My thanks to Dave who always supports and organises everything because he knows that I’m the opposite of him by always leaving everything until tomorrow but tomorrow never comes.

My special thanks to Jan, my gopher, choreographer, costume maker etc etc and my special friend.

My thanks to my friend Julie Skipp who also came to my HTM matador training sessions to provide help and ideas.

My thanks to Rugby Dog Training Club for their support and for spoiling me. I’m so proud to have started my dog training there 25 years ago when I was only ten - “ha ha”!!

On a sad note, our wonderful mum passed away three weeks before Crufts - what a hard life she had bringing up eleven kids. As the saying goes, we don’t even know we are born and she was so grateful and easy to look after in her old age. So as you can imagine Crufts did not seem so important after this but maybe she was there with me.

To Sue and Carli, many congratulations for your superb win in the Bitch Obedience Championship. First two tickets of the year can’t be bad and good luck to you with Quincy’s daughter Lucy, I hope she follows in her daddy’s footsteps.

I would not be able to write this letter if it wasn’t for Beryl Kelly who awarded me the ticket for Crufts, so thank you Beryl. And, of course, thanks to Crufts Judge Sandy Wadhams and her professional team who were extremely well organised with all the instructions very precise and clear. You are only going to please one person a day and thankfully it was me!


Finally, all my love and hugs to my soulmate dancing partner Quincy or Crufts Dog Obedience Champion “Woodsorrel Red Wine”.

Mary’s new video “Canine Cabaret” was released three weeks before Christmas and has proved to be the best selling video so far, with lots of canine enthusiasts finding it in their stocking on Christmas morning. This video contains her superb Heelwork to Music routine at Crufts 2002 with Quincy and Kizzy.

Mary has been invited back to Australia in 2004 after her very successful and highlight acclaimed visit in 2002.

Both Mary and Dave have been invited to New Zealand

in 2004. Mary will be judging Obedience and taking a seminar whilst Dave will be judging Agility.