Not sure if this problem is specific to the MVC wrappers or not, but right now, you can not access a kendo control from document.ready unless your code is output after the control is rendered.  That is counter intuitive to the way document.ready is generally used - it should not matter where the code lives on the page.  The solution I would like to suggest is to add init events to the controls, so code can be run when the widget loads on the page, without the order of code mattering on the page.  Here is a related support ticket for reference:

http://www.kendoui.com/account/support-tickets/reply-thread.aspx?threadid=611076