This page is dedicated to Billy MacKenzie's favourite dogs, the whippets and to Billy MacKenzie, the whippets' favourite male human being. Billy was one of the best whippet breeders in the UK for dog shows and races. I hope that you will enjoy the page that his friend Linda Wren and I have put up together as an introduction to Billy the whippet man as well as a 101 on whippet races and shows.
 
 
 

Billy with a puppy (1989) c/o Linda

Billy with Nessie (1990) c/o Libbie

Why a whippet page ?

Billy's friend and partner-in-whippets Linda Wren had her own whippet web site dedicated to the MacArthur strain some years ago but it was eventually closed.

She agreed to have it hosted again at the Affectionate Bunch. I thank her very much for this opportunity to let you know a little bit more about the other side of Billy MacKenzie, who was indeed well known as a dog breeder in the UK. So here's another part of his public life, though possibly less known to the fans of his music.

Tom Doyle's book "The Glamour chase : The maverick like of Billy MacKenzie" is all about the music side of Billy's life. It makes out that his dogs were nothing more than a hobby, which is wrong. Says Linda Wren :
 

Billy's dogs were his life. Billy was just as passionate about his whippets as he was about his music. He preferred to be with dog people than anyone else. All his spare time was taken up with the dogs and doing things with them. Billy actually loved being in Scotland, that's where his heart was. That's where he wanted to be with his Whippets and his family.

Country boy

The "Glamour chase" biography mentions embarassing anecdotes about how Billy's whippets would (not) cope with the Billy's lifestyle in recording studios or in London flats... More respectfully so, it also mentions the place Auchterhouse where Billy had kennels.

Auchterhouse is a village a few miles away in the north of Dundee. This is a place with lots of beautiful hills and paths. Billy used to walk "in the wild" around with his dogs. Sadly so, this is the place where he chose to die, too.

Here are some photos (shot in Autumn 2003) of the beautiful and quiet landscape at Auchterhouse.

Can you imagine Billy MacKenzie walking there with dogs running all around him ?

Tell me, tell me... how to be... a whippet breeder

As an introduction to whippets, a dog glossary and a assortment of links to web sites related to dog races and shows might do the trick. Instead, this writer will start from the point of view of someone who wants to breed whippets...

The first thing to do is to buy a dog from a breeder. If you want to show a dog, you would buy from a breeder who has show dogs and hopefully had a lot of success in the show ring. If you want one to race, you would buy one from a breeder who has race dogs.

If you are not sure how to buy a well bred dog, the best thing would be is to get in touch with the local Kennel Club and ask them for a list of breeders with Whippets in your country.

Then you start to show or race. If your dog is good enough you can then start your own strain (or blood line) by mating your dog or bitch to another one. All pedigree dogs have to be registered with a Kennel Club, which means they have to have a certificate which will prove that their parents and grandparents and greatgrand parents etc. all are from pure bred dogs. This is called the dog's pedigree. This is just the same as in breeding horses or any other pure bred animal.

The dog's father is called the sire. The dog's mother is called the dam. A female dog is called a bitch.

Races vs. shows

Racing Whippets is not really a business in the UK. It is purely an amateur sport.

You can make more of a business if you show dogs but you would have to have been very successful. Meaning, breeding very good specimens that will become show Champions.

You do not have to breed good show dogs if you want to race, but a race dog has to be very fast at running. So race people will only mate and breed dogs from racing strains and not from show strains.

Says Linda about the MacArthur whippets :
 

We did show every now and again but really you can't do both. The show bred dogs are a different type to racing bred ones. Most race bred dogs wouldn't win anything in a ring. They are usually much bigger than a race bred one. But of course Billy wanted an all rounder. It took him 20 years to breed a dog that could run fast and was still pretty to look at. This dog became our first Racing Champion.

The MacArthur strain

Billy's strain (or blood line) is called MacArthur which is Billy's second name. It is called in the UK an affix and you have to register the name with the Kennel Club otherwise it is not recognised.

Linda and Billy were in partnership with this. Here is how Linda and Billy first met, in Linda's own words :
 

I first became involved with whippets by accident in 1987. A friend of mine asked me to look after her Whippet , Abbey, while she herself had to go into hospital. Up until then I had been showing, breeding and working German Shepards (GSD) for 25 years, owning my first one when I was 14 years old. When I looked after Abbey I had only one elderly GSD left called Trapper, having lost two bitches in the same year. Trapper fell instantly in love with the Whippet and so did I. When Abbey was returned to her owner I wasted no time and accquired Jack (aka Magic Dragon) within days. A few months later Rosie (aka Magic Trick) arrived at the age of 8 weeks. She was bred by Billy MacKenzie in Scotland.  As Billy's business as a recording artist kept him from attending as many shows and race meetings as he wished, the rest of the MacArthur dogs came to live with us in England and they never left. Later Billy became my partner in Whippets.  Hence my introduction into racing.

Now Linda is the sole owner of the MacArthur strain. No one else can use this affix.

At the moment Linda have 4 Whippets. Three are quite old and past their racing careers. She has a young 2 year old bitch that she hasn't raced. Most people with dogs look after them themselves. Most are part of the family and live in the house with their owner. Keeping dogs for whatever reason is usually a way of life and the dogs are a much loved part of ones life.

Linda hasn't raced any dogs since Billy died.

The MacArthur whippets

The MacArthur whippets are pups or grandpups or greatgrandpups of Sadie (aka Master Mind), the dog that started the strain.

At this stage, the reader needs to know that dogs have a racing name (e.g. Mastermind) as well as a pet name (e.g. Sadie). They also have a Kennel Club Registration (KCR) name.
 

We had dogs called Secret Service, Mastermind, Red Alert etc. We didn't use that many of his song titles. We had a Country Boy, a Fever and a First Impression (who wasn't that impressive on the race track) but really some of the names he could pick ! Well they were just too much off the wall. And "perhaps" Shampout might have meant something to Billy but I certainly wasn't prepared to explain a name like that to all of dogdom. I did let him name one of the dogs Fever, that wasn't too bad. I didn't mind so much with these names but I put my foot down with others. I certainly didn't want a dog called, Racing Champion (RC) Gloomy Sunday, RC Just Can't Say Goodbye !!  And about announcing funny names, it was me who had to always go up to collect the trophies. Billy was always too shy. Funny he could sing to a crowd and not think anything of it, but he was always nervous about picking up a trophy in front of a crowd at a race meeting !

These pages were once part of Linda' own personal page called "The MacArthur Racing Whippets". Linda's web site was shut down in 1999 because the web space was needed for some other purpose.

Thank you Linda for allowing this writer to re-open your site in the affectionate surroundings of the Associates/Billy Mackenzie FAQ.

Click the thumbnails to open the dogs' personal pages.
 

Sadie (the foundation bitch) Racing Name : Master Mind KCRName : MacArthur spectre Born : 18/04/85 Dead : 99/99/00 Sire : Dondelayo Pagan Dam : MacArthur Apris Colour : Blue brindle
Alfie Racing name : Magic Master KCRName : MacArthur Playboy Born : 26/08/89 Sire : Salvo The Strange Quixote Dam : MacArthur Courtier Colour : Blue
Gracie Racing name : Gracious KCRName : MacArthur Promise Prize : WCRA Champion & Federation Supreme Champion Born : 01/08/91 Sire : Racing Champion Striker Dam : Mastermind Colour : Black/White blaze
Jack Racing Name : Magic Dragon KCRName : Wellnigh Magic Dragon Born : 17/02/1987 Sire : Show Champion Carmodian Tawny Knight of Hutaka Dam : Wellnigh Unforgetabelle Colour : Black brindle
Joe Racing Name : Terminator KCRName : MacAthur Motivation Prize : WCRA 1/2 Coat & Spt. Racing Champion Born : 01/08/91 Sire : Racing Champion Striker Dam : Mastermind Colour : Red brindle
Rosie (first Racing Champion) Racing name : Magic Trick Prize : WCRA & Federation Racing Champion KCRName : MacArthur Cover Girl Born : 04/12/88 Dam : Mastermind Sire : Laguna Larita Colour : Bindle/white parti.
Sofie Racing name : Secret Service KCRName : MacArthur Alphabet Born : 27/12/1986 Sire : MacArthur Bold Bliss Dam : Mastermind Colour : Blue brindle/white parti.

Pupstar

Most of Billy's friends were dog people. He would always stay in touch with people who had got a puppy from him. So as there were lots of pups, there were lots of dog friends.

It maybe hard to understand why a pop star like Billy didn't have many friends that were pop stars, not real friends that is. He was a Whippet man before he became a pop star and that's how the stayed. He always put the dogs first if he could.

He would rather be at a race or show meeting than at a popstar party.

Linda recalls a few anecdotes that testify for it...
 

The art of parties (1) Once he was at a party Annie Lennox was giving in New York and he rang back home to see how things were getting on with the dogs. Sadie, one of our bitches was due to give birth to pups and as soon as he found out that Sadie was in labour he got the next available flight back home." The art of parties (2)  Another time George Michael rang Billy to ask him to attend the party when his FAITH album was released.  Billy said he couldn't go as it was the end of the racing season and Billy had to attend that race meeting because one of his dogs needed to win that meeting. The dog needed to win that last race meeting to obtain points so it could become a Scottish Champion.  GM wasn't very pleased and said "fuck off, you're mad MacKenzie". So obviously one must be mad if they would rather go to a race meeting with their dogs than to a pop star party ! TV personality Another example of how strongly Billy felt about dogs was when he disappeared for a few days instead of going to Germany to record. None of his management knew where he'd disappeared to apart from his flat mate Steve Philips.  Then Steve rang Billy and said the National Greyhound Association had been trying to get in touch with him to ask him if he would present the trophies that same evening at a track in London.  Well Billy was over the moon and he was on the next train back to London. He rang me up quite late after the event to tell me all about it and what a great time he had with the Greyhound people after the presentation.  He was also quite full about getting a Greyhound but I eventually talked him out of that one ! Whippets and Greyhounds Sometimes when the press mentioned Greyhounds instead of Whippets, which often happened, Billy would go mad !  He would ring up the offending publication and give them hell. An easy mistake as most people wouldn't know the difference between the breeds. You could criticise his music and get facts wrong but never the Whippets.

Videostars

The video of Those First Impressions has the part where Billy walks up the steps has a couple of Whippets. The whippets were Billy's, of course. According to Linda, who recently came across a copy of this video, one of the dogs might be Sadie. Actually, it's either Sadie or her mum.

The Wild and Lonely whippet photos

Fire to Ice 12" (no whippet)

Fire to Ice 10" (Nessie cover star) back & front

Another picture from the same session

These 4 pictures are from the gallery of Alex' Tribute page.

Other BMW pictures from Alex' Tribute page :
Pedigree Chum
Champagne supernova
Billy with his whippets and friends

See also the glass whippets from the 1999 Memory Palace dance show here.

Don't forget to visit Alex's whole gallery !