Smoothing the Way
By Jessica Freni
2022 marked the first year the Border Collie National offered a separate open class for smooth coats. While the breed standard says of both the long and short coat varieties, “neither coat type is preferred over the other,” the long coat has largely been more popular with breeders and judges. However, in recent years there has been a strong effort in the breed community to put forth more smooth border collies for showing.
Kelsey Corn has been exhibiting Border Collies for about 15 years when a bitch from strictly working lines caught her eye scrolling the internet. She saw exactly what she wanted in a smooth bitch and bought her without hesitation. Kelsey hurried to register her using AKC registration as “Daisy the 27th” was previously only ABCA registered and three short months later they were off to the National!
Turns out, Kelsey’s instinct proved correct, “Daisy the 27th” not only won the open smooth class, but went on to be awarded Winners Bitch at the National under Judge Linda Clark (she also the same week earned her Rally Novice title)! Congrats to Kelsey and co-owner Tony Kupsick!
