Eukanuba launches World Challenge 2010
11 Mar 2010 08:02
THE Eukanuba World Challenge 2010 will be hosted at the American Kennel Club/Eukanuba National Championship at the Long Beach Convention Centre in California on December 4/5.
This year’s event will include an additional element, a breeders’ stakes champion. Qualifying heats for the Challenge will be held at designated shows in North America between January and November, in which breeders can exhibit a team of three dogs bred by them from at least two litters chosen from their breeding programme.
The winner of each heat will be invited to the championships in December to compete in a Eukanuba breeders’ stakes final, and the winner of this will take part in one of the four challenge sections, which will take place before judging of the challenge itself.
For the second successive year, a qualifying heat will be held at the FCI World Dog Show in Herning, Denmark, on June 24-27. A total of 19 FCI European member countries’ national kennel clubs will be invited to nominate a top-winning dog to take part in the World Challenge. They will be in addition to the 20 European countries already invited and which have participated in the event previously.
UK representative
The UK will hold its Eukanuba champion stakes final on October 23 at Chesford Grange Hotel, Kenilworth, and feature 26 finalists; winners from qualifying champion stakes at general championship shows will compete and one will become the UK representative at the World Challenge.
Another element introduced to the event last year which will remain in place is the invitation to the best in show winners at the three FCI section winner shows: Americas and Caribbean, European, and the Asia end Pacific.
This year’s Challenge judges will be Sean Delmar (Ireland), Desmond Murphy (US), Stefan Stefik (Slovakia) and Damir Skok (Croatia) who will choose three finalists from their section, culminating in 12 finalists selected from the 41 participating dogs. The ultimate winner will be selected by Hans Lehtinen (Finland).
The winners of the 2009 challenge was the Bracco Italiano Multi Ch Axel del Monte Alago owned by Bitte Ahrens and Salvatore Tripoli, and bred by Anna Maria Matteuzzi Scotto.