Sage, a miniature poodle, wins the Westminster Dog Show

A miniature poodle named Sage won first prize at the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show tuesday night

It was the 11th triumph for poodles of various sizes in America's most prestigious canine event – only wire fox terriers have won more. And it was the second best show win for handler Kaz Hosaka. He drove another miniature poodle, Spice, to the trophy in 2002 and said this year's Westminster would be his last.

“Speechless,” he said in the ring to describe his reaction to Sage's win, and soon offered a few words: “So happy, exciting.”

Strolling strong and proud around the ring, the inky black poodle “gave a great performance for me,” added Hosaka, who said he had been competing at Westminster for 45 years.

Sage beat out six other finalists to take home the top prize. In second place, Mercedes the German shepherd, also guided by a handler, Kent Boyles, who has won the grand prize before.

Others in the final round included Comet, a shih tzu who won the big American Kennel Club National Championship last year; Monty, a giant schnauzer who came to Westminster as top dog in the country and was a finalist at Westminster last year; Louis, an Afghan Hound; Micah, a black cocker spaniel; and Frankie, a colorful bull terrier.

They faced each other at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center, home of the US Open tennis tournament.

In an event where all competitors are champions in the sport's points system, winning can depend on subtleties and a standout turn in the ring.

“Just being in the ring with everyone else is an honor,” Monty's handler and co-owner Katie Bernardin said in the ring after his semifinal victory. “We all love our dogs. We're doing our best.”

Monty, who was also a finalist last year, is “a stallion” of a giant schnauzer, Bernardin of Chaplin, Conn., said in an interview before his semifinal win. She described him as solid, powerful and “very spirited”.

So “lively” that while Bernardin was pregnant, she did obedience and other dog sports with Monty because she needed the stimulation.

While he loves giant schnauzers, “they're not an easy breed,” he warns potential owners. But he adds that guided dogs can be great “if you can put the time into it.”

Dogs first compete against others of their breed. The winner of each race then faces the others in their “group”. The seven group winners face each other in the final round.

The Best in Show winner receives a trophy and a place in dog world history, but no cash prize.

Other dogs unsuccessfully competing for a place in the final included Stache, a Sealyham terrier. He won the National Dog Show that was televised on Thanksgiving Day and won first prize at a large terrier show in Pennsylvania last fall.

Stache shows a rare breed that is considered vulnerable to extinction even in its native Britain.

“They're a little-known treasure,” said Stache co-owner, breeder and handler Margery Good of Cochranville, Pa., who has bred “Sealys” for half a century. Originally developed in Wales to hunt badgers and other game, terriers with a 'fall' of hair over their eyes are brave but comical – Good calls them 'silly hams'.

Westminster can seem like a canine study of contrasts. Just walking by, a visitor could see a chihuahua peering from a carrier bag at a burly Neapolitan mastiff, a ring full of honey-colored golden retrievers next to a line of black giant schnauzers and handlers with dogs much larger than them .

Shane Jichetti was one of them. Ralphie, the 175-pound Great Dane she co-owns, far outweighs her. It takes considerable experience to show such a large animal, but “if you have a bond with your dog and just go there, it all works out,” he said.

Plus, Ralphie, for all his size, is “so cold,” Jichetti said. Playing at home in New York's Staten Island, it's perfect, as is his harlequin-print coat, when it's time to hit the ring.

“He's just an honest dog,” Jichetti said.

The Westminster show, which dates back to 1877, focuses on the traditional thoroughbred judging that leads to the best in show award. But over the past decade, the club has added agility and obedience events open to mixed-breed dogs.

And this year, the agility competition had its first non-purebred winner, a border collie-papillon mix named Nimble.