Monográfica 2004

Date:	May 29, 2004
Location:	Almagro (Spain)
Judge:	Francisco Salamanca Llorente

This time, the first stop of our long journey in Spain is called Almagro. In this village of La Mancha, which is located close to Ciudad Real approx. 175 km below Madrid, this year's Monográfica del Galgo Español took place. Almagro was influenced by the German trader's family Fugger from Augsburg, who had the franchise for the mercury mines in the West of the province during the 16th century. The influence of this family is even today visible at the Plaza Major, where the exhibition took place: arcades, typical for the South of Spain, which surround the market place, have central European-styled glass galleries with green window frames. And the landscape has been made unforgettable by Miguel de Cervantes in his book Don Quijote de la Mancha.

The Plaza Mayor
of Almagro

In the morning, when it was still pleasantly cool, the participants came to the Plaza Mayor, among them a lot of hunters. There were more than a hundred dogs waiting to be registered for the Concurso (in contrast to the Monográfica, which is the exhibition for Galgos with pedigrees, the dogs for the Concurso are registered only shortly before the exhibition). There was a long queue in front of the registration desk and in the meantime, the sun rose higher and higher, so that the air above the place soon became hot. Fortunately, the arcades gave a lot of shade during the whole day.

The judge, D. Francisco Salamanca, worked in public, which means that he used a microphone to explain the pros and cons of each dog, while he was also mentioning the important parts of the standard (which is almost generally done in that way in a Monográfica). He started with the 'puppy class', where Tita de Valle Estrella won the 'female class', but was beaten by Jucaro Spi Apolo in the competition for the puppy-BOB/BIS. In the 'junior class', there was only one male, Utrillo á la Cour du Roi Boulou from France, and three females. Ufana du Bouleau Argente, also from France, was successful among the females. The 'open class male' was won by Garbo de Valle Estrella, who also lives in France, but he was beaten by the male from the 'champion class', Ritmo de Valle Estrella, in the competition for the best male. Among the females, Little Lobito Barbarella, was first in the 'open class' and also won against the best 'champion class' female, Rosa de Valle Estrella. In the 'veteran class', we again had the pleasure to see the 10 year old male Helio de Valle Estrella, who still presents himself in excellent condition.

After the competitions for 'couple class' and 'breeders group', we arrived at the obligatory highlight of every Monográfica: the selection of the Best in Show. Obviously, it wasn't easy at all for the judge to decide between the male, Ritmo de Valle Estrella and the female, Little Lobito Barbarella. To our great delight, he finally chose the female, our Bärbel !