HIGH POINT CONFIDENTIAL: Underdog! High Point cocker spaniel won it all in 1954
Jun. 18—HIGH POINT — It wasn't exactly David toppling Goliath, but when a High Point cocker spaniel won top honors at the prestigious Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show, you probably could've knocked all the experts over with a single dog biscuit.
The New York Daily News called it "a stunning upset," and it surely was.
After all, in the show's illustrious 78-year history, a dog from the South hadn't won "Best In Show" at Westminster since, um, ever. North Carolina was more likely to have a blizzard in July than a winner at Westminster.
The year was 1954, and Carmor's Rise and Shine — a cocker spaniel owned by Mrs. Carl E. (Wilma) Morgan of High Point's Carmor Kennels — was barking under everybody's radar that February when Westminster got under way. In the show's nearly eight decades of existence, only two cockers had won "Best In Show" — the ultimate canine throne — and they were both jet-black, which didn't bode particularly well for the buff-colored Rise and Shine.
Furthermore, the dog was only 2 years old, a mere puppy compared to many of the nearly 2,600 other dogs at Westminster, and he had been competing only for about six months. Just between us, some dogs can barely be housebroken in that amount of time.
Oh, and if you still don't believe Rise and Shine was an underdog, only a month earlier he'd been beaten at the American Spaniel Club's annual show. If he couldn't even beat dogs within his own breed, how could he possibly go to the granddaddy of all dog shows and beat dogs representing more than a hundred different breeds?
But after winning "Best of Breed" and then taking top honors in the sporting dogs group, Rise and Shine was one of six finalists competing for "Best In Show" — along with a bulldog, a Yorkshire terrier, an Afghan hound, a boxer and a Kerry Blue terrier — and the surprising spaniel got the nod.
An estimated 10,000 dog show fans at Madison Square Garden roared their approval when Rise and Shine was declared the winner.
"Smooth as he could be," the show's chief judge said. "He has a beautiful coat and a smooth, even gait such as I have never seen in a buff-colored cocker."
Something else the dog had going for him was a stellar handler named Teddy Young Jr. He was only 27 and not really well-known at the time, but Young would go on to become one of the dog show world's most successful, influential handlers. When Rise and Shine won, Young literally tossed the 30-pound dog in the air and let out a yell as he celebrated the unexpected win.
Young, who had been handling dogs for nearly a decade, told a reporter his dogs had won "Best In Show" at other events, "but this is the greatest dog I've ever had."
The press gave High Point's canine celebrity his due, as newspapers all over the country reported on Rise and Shine's win. Many of them published his photo, too.
It's just a historical footnote now, but it must've been a proud moment for High Point — and for Rise and Shine — at the time.
Guess it's true what they say: Every dog has his day, and Feb. 9, 1954, was his.
jtomlin@hpenews.com — 336-888-3579
