Oy, what a week! It's been crazy, thus the lack of posting. I'll try and do better.
Our fall coursing season started with a bang last weekend with a long trip to Connecticut for the Region 9 Invitational which I judged. We headed out last Thursday for the trek and made it to Karen and Mikes in New York by mid day on Friday. We spent an enjoyable afternoon with our good friends, checking out some new whippet puppies and enjoyed ribs and roasted veggies for dinner. Headed out around 6:00 for the drive from their house to somewhere in Connecticut. The drive should have taken just an hour or so, but ended up taking us almost 3 hours thanks to the convoluted road system, bridges, traffic and tolls. Those folks up there are proud of their roads, charging tolls all over the place for a crappy driving surface. I mean, just damn. Spend some of that revenue on keeping the roadway smooth. I thought we were going to shake apart in places.
After a good nights sleep, we got up early and headed for the field, another 1 1/2 hours away. This was a really beautiful drive through middle Connecticut. It's a beautiful place, but there's no way I could handle the winters they have!! Anyways, back to the coursing. We got to the field, and what a beautiful place it is. It's a private farm with quite a few very nice, coursable fields. The field we were on was back off the main road set against a treeline on two sides, but that didn't matter thanks to the size of the field. It's a sloping field (rather a hill), down away from the start/finish. Dogs had to do a lot of work up and down that hill to be successful. The grass wasn't overly long, but it wasn't sheared short either. Actually, perfect running conditions. I wish I could pick that field up and move it south for our use!
There weren't many Greyhounds, Karen and Mikes, Tracy's and another couple had two there. Sweeney took BoB at the Regional and brought home a very nice trophy. The Whippets didn't place so well thanks to a really screwy judge (one I will NEVER spend money to run under again), but in my opinion ran great, especially since one hadn't run in 5 months and the other in 7 months! We had the Alley's Oh Jo with us too and she came up on the short end of the stick.
Sunday was a bit of a different story. We didn't run Sweeney (we're still working on one day a weekend) but ran all three Whippets and Nellie. Whippets did really well, with Everett taking BoB for his third 1st towards LCM 10. Lobo fell in prelims and just didn't manage to get back into it until too late. Jo did really well and finished 4th for the day. Nellie's story is a bit more of a disappointment. She collided with the dog in prelims and lost focus, decided it was time to play and ended up dismissed. We're not too happy, but life goes on. Maybe she'll have a career at LGRA or NOTRA.
This week has been busy as we're getting ready for Mike and Karen to visit us this weekend. They're coming down for the SEGC trials in Moreland and are staying with us. It'll be a lot of fun since this is their first time coming to our house.
I have to get to Moreland pretty early in the morning, help set up the field for the SEGC trial, then hustle over to the Coweta County Fairground to judge the IGCA National Specialty. Probably isn't going to be a huge trial, but it'll be a lot of fun and it's always an honor to judge, especially a specialty. Ruthanna is taking the whippets to Moreland on Sunday to run while I return to the CCF to run the lure for the AKC portion of the specialty. Going to be another busy weekend!
Unfortunately, we have canceled our plans to attend the Greyhound Specialty in Oklahoma this year. Just can't work it out, so good luck to everyone who's going!
I'll leave you with a picture...
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