Last night, in preparation for today’s race meet, I brought in all the muzzles from the car to replace the tattered remains of the vetwrap I’d applied a couple of years ago to pad the sharper edges. The dogs saw the muzzles and general mayhem ensued as they all tried, simultaneously, to stuff their faces into the well-known equipment that could only mean one thing: RACING!
I laughed and shooed them away, and set about the tedious job of re-wrapping, with the TV on for distraction, and one by one the dogs went and found their favorite sleeping spots and drifted off to dream of starting boxes, muzzles and squawker lures. Tiercel settled next to me on the couch, and watched intently for a while as I worked on one of the muzzles, before drifting off to sleep. When I finished wrapping the muzzle, I stretched and he woke up. Noticing I was done, he grinned and wagged and stuffed his face in the muzzle again. I laughed at him and slipped the strap over his ears. He crawled into my lap and lay there with his beloved muzzle on, grinning at me. It made him very happy to think about racing. And it made me happy too.
So today, we went racing… at BCWRC’s NAWRA meet in Abbotsford, BC. What a fantastic day, with near-perfect weather, fine friends, and great racing. It was an interesting meet in that 21 of the 30 whippets were grade D dogs! Wow! I can’t remember such a D-heavy meet in my time racing. It made for very exciting racing all through the races, from high point to low.
Tiercel had a great day, finishing just out of the top 10 in 11th place. This meet finished his SRM title! Lark ran well, winning one of her races and finishing 19th (I think) in the meet.
The real story of the day was young Branwen, who made her adult racing debut today. She has been schooling very well this spring in practice runs, but until today had only run out of the boxes with two other dogs, so it was a big test for her to move to the real thing, with six-dog races. She lucked out and drew an outside box for the first program, keeping her clear of traffic, and she ran very well to win her first race convincingly. She moved all the way up to the high-point for the 2nd program, where she was a little out of her league, and had a momentary lapse of confidence and pulled up slightly just before the finish line. But she figured out what she was supposed to do, put her head back down and ran hard to the lure. She dropped down to the semi in the 3rd program and stayed there for the 4th, finishing last in both but running harder and more confidently each time.
She finished 15th in the meet, learned a lot, and gained really valuable experience. Best of all, she had a great time and was really proud of herself for running with “the big dogs.” It is always fun to see how they respond to running in competition for the first time, when they’ve spent their whole lives tagging along to events and getting practice runs; they are so happy and proud to finally get their chance at the real thing!
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
Oh GO Branwen! That is SO awesome! And funny how they are with muzzles and other running paraphenalia – Nike is that way with ladders…a bit annoying.
An excellent day all ’round methinks!!
Ladders? You mean because they remind him of the lure operator?
Beth, we always enjoy the visits you and your elegant whippets make to our race meets – and especially when you’ve had so much enjoyment from watching another of your youngsters develop on the track.
All the best…Bill