Jill has asked us to announce that the Beagle Race at the Open on the 3rd May will now start BEFORE the whippet races (Good news – less hanging about!).

Beagle Race start time is 11 am. The check in time is 10.30 am.

Contact number for more info: Maggie Hendrie on 0123 683 0273.

Information will also be available on the Caledonian Thistle Pedigree Whippet Racing Website: www.callythistlewhippetracing.co.uk and the Scottish Beagle Club website: www.scottishbeagleclub.org.uk/html/beagle_racing.html

This Sunday (26th April) we’ll be doing time trials. This will determine handicaps for next week’s race. The faster dogs will be starting further back to give everyone a chance.

It was a big day at Beagle racing yesterday, but not because there were points or rosettes up for grabs. Nope, the thing that made it special was that four of the contenders were from Newlin Beagles: Beanie, her littermates Bella and Dudley, and Chief – who was from the subsequent litter. We quickly arranged to have a special race just for them (and Biggles, who naturally couldn’t be left out) but before that we had to line up for the normal races.

A notable absentee this week was Murphy – his owner was called away just before the first race kicked off, so he just got a quick solo run up the track and then he was away. It was a shame – Beanie was completely fresh this time and I’d been hoping to see how she’d stack up against last year’s derby winner. Still there were enough Beagles present to run two heats, a consolation race and a final.

Beanie was called up for the first heat wearing the white jacket. She got away cleanly and soon took the lead. As she crossed the line, there was no need for photos to decide the finishing order!

So that was Beanie smoothly through to the final. The next race had little Biggles running against the other two male newbies Dudley and Chief. It was quite a “physical” race, and as a result of all the argy-bargy most of the the contenders ended up bunched on one side of the track.

That wasn’t the end of the aggro though. As the others pulled away after the lure, Biggles and Dudley were left running side by side.

Prior to the race, Dudley had shown a certain “interest” in Biggles. Our little boy hadn’t enjoyed it much; he’s just not that sort of boy, and anyway if anybody’s going to hump you it should be your sister (and indeed Beanie does, very regularly, but only when she’s finished humping Susan’s legs!) Needless to say if Biggles didn’t enjoy getting amorous attention before the race, he certainly didn’t want any of that naughty business going on during the race:

I think the next photo adequately expresses how our boy was feeling through all of this!

Regardless, he managed to rise above and crossed the finish line, securing a place in the consolation race which as it happened was coming up just a few minutes later. And by a remarkable coincidence this race was also hit by the kind of inappropriate physical contact found in the legendary re-enactment of Pearl Harbor by the Batley Towns-Women’s Guild. Amazingly Biggles somehow steered clear of the jostling and found himself in the lead.

I feared he might stop to investigate all the commotion, but no, like Forest Gump he just kept on a-runnin’:

Closer…

CLOSER…

HE’S DONE IT! Biggly Boy wins by a huge margin!

After he crossed the line he pounced on the lure and.. stood motionless looking very confused. Why on earth had everybody been chasing this thing? I mean it didn’t even taste nice (and yes he did checked that out by having a little nibble). He didn’t ponder the depths of this mystery for very long though, because I called him over and gave him the biggest chunk of cheesy omelette he’d ever seen. Sorted!

Now it was time for the final. You’ll never guess what happened.. or maybe you will..

This time it was Beanie who was on the receiving end of Dudley’s attention, and she reacted badly to it. After a few cross words, she huffily turned around and trotted right back to Susan on the start line, her dreams of victory lying in the gutter..

As they say in South Park, “screw you guys I’m going home”

A similar thing had happened last week (with Chief that time) and she barely jogged down the rest of the course to finish last. We’d put that down to tiredness from an earlier flyball session, but now I’m thinking that she’d just gone on another “huff”. It seems our princess takes her racing more seriously than we thought!

Anyway, that was the end of the scheduled stuff, and now it was time for the fun races. Beanie got a couple of solid victories to make up for the earlier disappointment..

..but the race I was really wanting to see was the full Newlin line up, plus the Biggly boy of course! Here it is in glorious slow motion (for best viewing quality, hit the HQ button on the panel once the clip starts playing):

As you can see, there was a bit of naughtiness in this race too. On this occasion I think Chief was the instigator, but at least it paved the way for Biggles (in blue) to join his speedy sister (red) in the first two positions. Chief crossed the line next, followed by Dudley and Bella. How Bella managed to come last even after overtaking Chief and Dudley is a bit of a mystery, but let’s not forget this was her first ever day at the races!

In an effort to help Dudley learn that the race track is for racing rather than.. other things.. he had a race with Beanie. Beanie started slightly in front to ensure there wouldn’t be any jostling, and as you can see Dudley ran well.

But was that enough to cure him of his naughty tendencies? Well, a photo from a subsequent race suggests otherwise!

Last year Beanie was the baby at the race track. This year we’ve got a whole bunch of dog’s the same age and younger. Dudley and Chief might have had one or two naughty moments but they’ll soon learn that the race track is for racing! The important thing is that they are both very fast dogs with heaps of potential. Who knows, maybe the second half of the season will be thoroughly dominated by Newlin Beagles!

Here’s one of the other races, this time from the side:

That was it for the Beagles, but during the day I also got some photos of the whippets in action. Here’s a sequence showing a youngster piling into the lure at the end of the race: