It seems hardly any time at all, yet at the same time it seems many years ago, since I spent two solid days on the telephone begging, cajoling and persuading sponsors to support a new competition for the non-pedigrees in the north. Three years on and the last Grand Final was about to take place, before the competition was replaced by the Royal Canin Stakes, RC having, very generously and kindly, taken over full sponsorship and control of the competition. It was a moment tinged with relief and sadness at the same time. Sadness that it was the last ever Final, the end of a short but glorious era of our very own Stakes competition, our own baby, yet relief that the burden of retaining sponsors, keeping up with shows and show managers, physically getting prizes and rosettes to the shows etc, had been lifted from my shoulders.

The previous two Finals had seen 19 and 21 cats entered, this year we had 25 qualified, of which 21 entered, only three were absent, leaving 18 battling it out to be the last ever winner.  One notable absentee was the winner of both the previous two Finals, Cath Jackson’s Lucinda, who had, unfortunately, not qualified this year, although Cath was well represented with a couple more of her cats, one of which, Alex, was one of only 6 cats who had qualified all three years, the others being our own Littleman Raffles and Bonnie Goldengirl, Pat Kidd’s Alfred and Hannah and Eileen Smith’s Tabatha.

The array of prizes, although perhaps not quite as extensive as in previous years due to the unavoidable loss of a couple of sponsors, was still more than acceptable. For the qualifiers there were the now customary personalised mementos – picture, certificate and key ring – courtesy of the South Ribble Pet Cat Club and 400gm bags of Techni-Cal from AJM Petfoods.  That was just for being there! There were 750 kg bags of Techni-Cal for second and third placed cats in the Classes and the winners received 2kg of Techni-Cal, 25ltr Bio-Catolet cat litter and a mounted cat figurine depicting at least one of the colours in the Class, from SRPCC.  All first three placed cats in each Class also received a rosette kindly sponsored by the North West Cat Club.

The haul for the Overall Winner was impressive. In addition to the prizes for winning the Class the lucky winner also received 5 kg of Techni-Cal, a superb cat bed/scratch centre courtesy of Kalven, a large mounted cat figurine and a book from SRPCC,  a 6 month subscription from Our Cats, a Paradise Island cat play toy from Cat World and a trophy from SRPCC (to keep. There were further rosettes, an overall winner one (sponsored by the NWCC) and three runners up rosettes (sponsored by Bella Penning).

The first results to come in were from the Black/White/Black & White Class where, after a pretty bad day by his standards, we were both surprised and delighted to find that our own LITTLEMAN RAFFLES had won. Despite being the first cat to qualify in all three years, this was the first time he had reached the Grand Final. The Tabby and Ginger/Tortie classes produced Pat Kidd’s ALFRED and Valerie McKenzie’s MILLIE as the winners and the last Class, the AOC Class was won by Pauline Christian’s stunning blue rescue, TEDDY BOY, appearing in his, and Pauline’s, first Grand Final. The four Grand Finalists were then judged across the table by the three judges, Mrs S Dalton, Mr B Campbell and Mrs H J Watson. After much deliberation the winner, by a 2 to 1 majority, was TEDDY BOY. Pauline was stunned but delighted and everyone agreed that it could not have gone to a nicer pair than Pauline and TEDDY!

Any competition is only as good as its prizes and we would like to give our most grateful thanks to the following Heat and Final sponsors, without whom the competition would not have got off the ground, nor continued for the three years:-

Heat sponsors:- Techni-Cal (AJM Pet Products), Bio-Catolet (Midas Products), Our Cats

 Final Sponsors;:- Techni-Cal (AJM Pet Products), Bio-Catolet (Midas Products), Our Cats, Cat World, Kalven, SRPCC, NWCC, Bella Penning (for providing the 4 Finalists pens, drapes kindly made by show manager, Lesley Muffit). We are also most grateful to Lesley for her support and encouragement throughout, and for not only offering the Final Classes free to the qualifiers but also providing the rosettes.

Extra special thanks are also due to Techni-Cal (AJM Pet Products), Our Cats, Cat World, Kalven, SRPCC, NWCC & Bella Penning who have supported us from beginning to end without wavering. Other sponsors have come and gone over the three years of the competition (and grateful thanks go to all of them) but these stalwarts deserve a special mention.