The Crufts best-in-show judge Clare Coxall interviewed by Andrew Brace
29 Feb 2008 10:16
THERE ARE many people who feel very strongly that the unquestionable honour of judging best in show at Crufts should be offered only to those who have contributed to the dog world through successful breeding and exhibiting. This year the Crufts committee can sleep easily, free of any criticism, as the choice of the 2008 BIS judge has a record of success that stands the closest of scrutiny.
Before she judged the utility group at Crufts I interviewed Clare Coxall for DOG WORLD and would have said that was five or six years ago… how wrong can you be? It was actually eleven years ago; a sign of getting old I guess.
In that article I detailed Clare’s phenomenal successes in the dog world which first came to her when, in 1966, as a relatively unknown Toy Poodle exhibitor, she piloted what was essentially a bought-in brood bitch of a minority colour whom she had worked on for many long months to the top spot at the world’s most famous dog show. Thus began Clare’s unusual and unique involvement with Crufts Dog Show.
Clare was born of farming stock and the first dog she owned was a mongrel from whom she bred her very first litter. I was tempted to conclude that this was the teenage Clare’s first conscious attempt at breeding dogs: however she admits that Suki’s pregnancy was something of an accident.
“I didn’t really understand about bitches coming in season,” laughs Clare, “and she managed to get out. Of course when I found her she was stuck to another dog back-to-back and I didn’t know what the hell was going on!” Suki duly produced a litter and thus stimulated Clare’s interest in the veterinary side of dogs. She realised she wanted to know a lot more about the canine world.
When at school Clare had designs on becoming a nurse, “but the careers officer told me I’d never do it with my flat feet. I was also dyslexic, which didn’t help,” she remembers.
She was largely educated in Scotland following evacuation from her doodlebugged home and those days were not too happy. “I was surrounded by people who thought I was an alien from the south, nobody could understand me, and I got the strap every time I mis-spelled a word – which was often – and I ran away at one point, but I fell in a ditch where they eventually found me.”
Having returned south Clare continued her schooling and expressed an interest in joining the hockey team as she had first taken up the sport when in Scotland. “I played outside wing, and boy I was so fast on my feet. That was really my first taste of any kind of competitive activity and I was competitive.”
Having left school Clare had decided that she wanted to pursue a veterinary career and her first job was with Mr Cornish Bowden who had a practice in Beckenham.
“He was one of the Kennel Club vets at the time, we were living at West Wickham and I cycled to work every day – four miles there and four miles back. I learnt all about veterinary nursing and had the job of helping with dogs that had to be put to sleep. That wasn’t much fun. If they looked me in the eye I couldn’t bear it and many is the dog I stole from the surgery. I would find them homes and go round to walk them.
“Then my boss died – he had a heart attack when he was driving and I was in the passenger seat – that was a blow. His partner wanted me to stay on with him but I didn’t really approve of some of his practices, so I sat an intelligence test for Bromley Technical College, passed it with flying honours, though they couldn’t understand how I was so lousy on the paperwork. Still my dyslexia had not actually been diagnosed. I couldn’t spell, read backwards and wrote backwards… a nightmare. But I felt I had found my niche in the veterinary world and was going to study with that in mind.”
However, when in the middle of her studies, Clare suffered a second accident on a bus – the first was when she was 16 and she completely smashed her spine – which resulted in her being thrown down the stairwell, causing further damage to her back.
“That put paid to my career and also gave me an allergy to buses – well, do you blame me? I had to find a sitting down job because of my spine, so I travelled each day up to Vauxhall in London, underneath the arches, where I did piece work, sewing garments. I made a lot of money because I was so quick.
“I spoke with a posh voice so a friend I made there had to translate what the Cockneys were saying. I had been stripped of my comfort zone and this was all a bit a culture shock to me – I even met my first lesbian there! I also met my first husband Paul at that time when some friends and I were out socialising; he went off to do national service and we married when he came back.
“I wanted to get married before he went overseas because then I could have had the married woman’s allowance which would have been very handy, but my parents wouldn’t hear of it so I left home and moved in with my good friend Cynthia and her family who lived close to my work.”
The next stage of Clare’s competitive development was when she watched men fencing at the Mowlem’s Fencing Club, and felt that she too could do that. “None of the men had much money, so I helped out by making fencing outfits. I started fencing and was by far the best of the women who were involved, but also fenced successfully against the best men here and abroad.
“Mowlem’s had imported a French Professor of Fencing from France, and boy was he dish. I learnt a lot from him, but I was engaged to Paul at the time! I remember one day getting hopelessly drunk because I only made the reserve team. As it turned out, I was called on to play when one of the team pulled a ligament, and had a right ticking off from the Professor that day!”
At much about the same time, she began ballroom dancing and swimming, all in an attempt to strengthen her back, and danced her way to gold medals. “Looking back, I don’t know how I’ve crammed in so much … did I tell you I’d done wildlife photography as well?”
Clare then decided that she could make more money dressmaking and, having borrowed £50 from her grandfather to buy an old industrial Singer sewing machine, she set up on her own.
“I had some very good clients including Peter Dimmock’s wife – they had two televisions I remember – and specialised in ballgowns and wedding dresses. I brought London traffic to a halt one Christmas – I had made a white velvet bridal gown with six bridesmaid’s dresses – three pairs in red velvet. That was a sight and they were married near a roundabout where the taxis and cars just had to slow down when they saw this.”
The last wedding gown Clare made was that of her daughter-in-law Jenny who married Clare’s son Adrian.
By now Clare had married Paul who then worked as a West End photographer. He was offered a job on the Isle of Wight, taking photographs at the zoo there which was owned by a Mr Bateman. Now Mr and Mrs Perry, Clare and Paul were accommodated in a caravan at the zoo, and it was here that Clare met Mr Bateman’s wife Betty who was already an established dog breeder, owning the Yaverland kennel which is probably best known for its Chihuahuas but at that time kept a large number of breeds.
Clare was busy dressmaking in the caravan when Mrs Bateman had staff problems and so Clare offered to help out and ended up as head girl. She would often have the job of taking in-season bitches to the mainland where she began to develop an eye for all breeds.
“I also learnt the art of grooming, hand-stripping terriers long before I ever had a Poodle. I learnt Cockers, Bedlingtons and all the stripped breeds, but people never get to hear that,” Clare reminisces.
One day she spotted a Toy Poodle puppy in the kennels of a most unusual colour, a colour she had never seen before – apricot. “I just adored the colour of this pretty little thing – Sylvia she was called – and eventually I bought her daughter, Tiopepi Yaverland Honey Blonde, and that was the start of my Toys.”
Clare registered the now famous kennel name after having seen a bottle of the famous sherry and just tweaked the name a little – or maybe that was just her dyslexia again! Many have credited her with great insight with the drink being so close in colour to apricot Poodles, but with typical frankness she admits the thought had never occurred to her!
When her husband had to return to the mainland for his next job, he and Clare took with them several apricot Toy Poodles as well as their infant son, Adrian now having been born. She had become fascinated by the colour and now realised that apricots were a great challenge. They moved into a property at Worcester Park where they established a breeding, boarding and grooming business.
“One Saturday I was helping Dorrie Cutchey – Oakington Poodles – with her dogs and saw this gorgeous little six weeks bitch in a puppy pen with some others. She gave me some food for the pups which they scoffed and so I asked her for some more food. She told me they couldn’t have any more as it would encourage them to grow oversize. I was that disgusted I walked out without the money for my hard day’s work!”
The bitch puppy – Oakington Puckshill Amber Sunblush – that had so taken Clare’s eye was subsequently shown and bred from by the time Clare saw her again at the LKA of 1964. “I had heard she was for sale and Dorrie wanted £100 for her. Lena Moody (Rhosbridge) said that was far too much for a bitch of that age who had so many litters. Her breeder, Bunty Dobson (Puckshill) and I discussed the bitch and agreed to buy her between us. I was to make the cheque out for £100 and Bunty would then give me half, but she reneged on the deal so I had a cheque out there but not enough money in the bank to cover it.”
Clare, as you can imagine, persuaded her bank manager to honour the cheque – convincing him that this would be her first champion – and Sunshine was duly taken to her vet who was appalled at the condition she was in, with a leathery undercarriage and loose teeth, but with sound advice, the right products and a lot of TLC she was eventually brought up to condition and had won her first CC when Clare entered her for Crufts in 1966.
“Donald Wickens was a great friend and advisor and had beautiful silver Toys. He used to help me scissor Sunshine and she looked a picture. When I won Crufts everyone thought I was a complete novice but they had no idea what I had been breeding. I had studied genetics for five years to know how to hold my colour. I knew what I was doing.
“Anyhow, Sunshine won her second ticket that day and then the group under Joe Braddon and Maurice Gilliat. Bill Siggers and Fred Cross (who had also made her BOB) were the BIS judges so I had all the big guns, and of course she pulled it off… and the first person I phoned was that bank manager! I could get anything off him after that,” muses Clare.
In the years that followed Clare established a formidable line of apricot Toys and then turned her attention to the Miniatures, but still using the same basic bloodlines. After her marriage to Paul was dissolved, in August 1972 Clare married Dennis Coxall – in Canada.
While the Tiopepi Miniatures were initially apricot-based, their blacks had an even greater impact when Clare started working with Aesthete and Lochranza lines, and then came by Vernlil Angela from Conersk who had won two CCs for owner Heather Weinert who was at the time staying with the Coxalls. It was Angela who produced the legendary Ch Tiopepi Typhoon. Many successful Miniature breeders today owe much to Tiopepi breeding.
Although Clare is long since out of dog breeding, she has recently been thrilled to hear extensive testing for PRA in the USA Miniatures has concluded that her lines remain totally clear.
Logically Clare continued her involvement with apricot Poodles by adding Standards to the kennel, making up champions, and here there is another memorable Crufts story in Clare’s life. At the 1976 show Ch Tiopepi Baymer Golden Sunrise had won his title (Typhoon was also BOB in Miniatures). In theory it should have been a joyous and memorable day for Clare but turned into one of her worst.
“Yogi – Golden Sunrise – was the subject of a coat test as apparently an exhibitor had lodged an official complaint, alleging that the dog had been dyed. Of course he hadn’t. I walked into this office to meet all these stone-faced men, they took a sample and to say I was upset was an under statement. I had given my life to breeding apricots – why would I colour them?
“What came next was horrendous. Of course the coat test came back clear, but in the meantime the papers had printed these damning stories about this woman whose dyed dog had won at Crufts. I had to sue the Sunday paper to clear my name but all the money I got was swallowed up by solicitors’ fees. The complaint was lodged by an exhibitor in my breed, and of course I know who it was.”
It was however another colour in Standards that helped create the next Crufts chapter for Clare when Ch Montravia Tommy-Gun took BIS for Marita Gibbs as she then was. On an American judging trip Clare had met up with Bud Dickey and Joey Vergnetti of Dassin note, and an enduring friendship developed as they saw Poodles through the same eyes. In due course a black Standard dog, Dassin Diablo, came to Tiopepi, Clare having judged him as a puppy.
He made a name for himself in the ring and as a sire, and when Clare had a daughter of his ready to mate, she opted for Ch Montravia Gay Gunner as the chosen sire. In the resulting litter was a rather special dog puppy that the Gibbs took a shine to and, in a fit of overwhelming generosity, Clare agreed to let them have it – unregistered – as a stud puppy. At the time Clare had a dog puppy she considered better, but sadly when he was just of puppy he developed a cataract and so that was the end of his career.
Tommy-Gun’s successes culminated with BIS at Crufts 1985.
Clare began breeding Bichons Frisés almost by accident having had a bitch given to her. In her first litter was a very promising dog puppy who was greatly admired by a young Standard Poodle exhibitor from Ireland who was visiting to have Clare cut out the bitch she had given him, later to become Ch Sheer Heaven from Tiopepi.
“Michael had lost one of his Bichons and really loved this dog puppy, but he had no money, so I just gave him the puppy and he did so well by him.”
That was Ch Tiopepi Mad Louie at Pamplona, a dog who brought great success to Michael Coad and Geoff Corish and helped the Bichon breed no end.
Clare is now retired from dog breeding and the only dog who now shares her and Dennis’ home is her last champion, the white Standard, The Hustler at Tiopepi, now nine years old.
Clare first awarded CCs to Toy Poodles in 1974 when she pulled 89 dogs, having first judged at open shows in 1966. Slowly expanding her breeds, she first judged a group in Ireland when she stepped in to replace Bill Siggers and her first UK group came in 1982 at Belfast.
She then was honoured by an invitation to judge the utility group at Crufts in 1997. Her first BIS appointment at a UK general championship show was at Blackpool in 1990 when her winner was one of the legendary RP Greyhounds.
Needless to say Clare has judged extensively overseas, always guaranteed to pull a large entry and a large ringside as she is one of our most watchable and theatrical judges. Her body language is instantly readable and ringsiders are never in any doubt as to what she is doing.
“I am always looking for my lead dog, and hoping I have something else to follow it. I try to communicate with my ringside and my exhibitors, and you have to have the confidence to show the people what is right with the dogs you like. I am very deliberate in what I do, I am positive in my gestures and hope there is never any misunderstanding.
“I usually have a very vocal ringside and am used to lots of clapping – until I judged a Bearded Collie show. I had judged the first class to the best of my ability, I pointed, I marked my book, and there was deadly silence. I began to think I’d really messed up, and said to one of the handlers in the line-up ‘Well that went down like a lead balloon’, only to be told that they never applaud in that breed because the dogs then bring their tails up! But at the end of the day they gave me a standing ovation at the benches.
“I like my exhibitors to listen and I think I make myself clear. They usually take on board what I tell them but God help them if they change handlers or switch position!”
Clare is also an established and popular lecturer in a variety of canine subjects and her talks on canine anatomy and presentation are widely acknowledged as some of the best.
Of the present day dog scene, Clare says; “Today judges are held back much more than we were, there are so many restrictions and restraints that judges cannot be individuals. Exhibitors have changed, they are so demanding and judges just don’t have the freedom to be as informal and personable as they used to be. Our exhibitors today are like touch paper… there is this divine right of the individual that does our sport no favours.
“Working for dog shows is also a minefield today. I don’t understand how our show secretaries cope with the workload and legislation we have, and unless we have new young people brought along, who are going to run our shows in the future? Might we one day see some kind of show superintendents doing a lot of the work here?
“Our judging system cannot meet the world. We have a system that is archaic and we really have to work to prove ourselves. We have some of the best judges in the world who have the depth and the talent and they just cannot get the exposure they deserve overseas because of the restrictions of our own country. It is sad but British judges are probably more abused than any. We are so subservient in this country and we just don’t challenge the establishment.”
When Clare received her invitation to judge BIS at Crufts in 2008, she was taken aback. “It is a very simple letter, not in big gold letters or anything, and it simply said ‘Best in Show’ in the middle, and I had to read and re-read it.
“When it had registered, I replied to it in ten minutes, clipped and filed it and forgot about it because I couldn’t really handle the enormity of it at the time. It only hit me when I had to return the form requesting accom modation. I WAS JUDGING BEST IN SHOW AT CRUFTS.”
Clare is probably the first person to have won BIS at Crufts, bred another BIS winner there and subsequently judged the top award. The credentials simply add to the uniqueness that is Clare. So what will she be looking for on the big day?
“I never really understood the meaning of charisma until I judged Danny the Pekingese who wagged his tail at me as I got to the table. I had Tommy-Gun and Hazelnut in a group at the same time and it was the little Toy that followed me round – where I went, her eyes went. She had an aura about her. When I put hands on Killick of the Mess, I felt electricity.
“There will be a dog in there who’s on fire, doing everything just for me, sometimes you get surprises and when you do it is truly magical. I have no doubt that I will have some great dogs in there, but I’m sure there will be one that just pushes all the right buttons. And when it’s all over, I’ll probably want to do it all over again.”
Clare bemoans the fact that these days we have no characters in the dog world. As long as she is around, the regret is not totally justified and we all look forward to seeing her in action at the show that has become her very own.