Sunday, June 15, 2008

And We're Off!!!!


Storms hammered Stowe last night, dumping lots of rain and also putting power out in various areas; however, the morning dawned with heavy overcast skies but no rain. Scattered showers with a 50% chance of such are hovering over us...

The 51st running of the National Amateur Retriever Championship is off and running! Announcer Larry Wharton greeting all National contestants, workers and spectators and then played the National Anthem; to Larry's credit he had even erected an American Flag on an aluminum pole. It was very moving to salute the flag before the beginning of this National Amateur Championship stake.

Test dog number one with Margo Brown came to the line at 7:31 a.m. and took 6 minutes to complete the test. She handled on the short retired bird and had some difficulty with the blind. Test dog number two with Dave Opseth completed the marks without a handle and then had a good go toward the blind and ended with difficulty...this was also a six minute run.

As the early handlers went back to the parking area to get their dogs, Wharton played some appropriate music to set the mood for this competition, such as Tom Petty's "Runnin' Down a Dream" and Bruce Springsteen's "Born to Run"...

Dog number 93 approached the line at 8:07 a.m. and had a good clean run with a really pretty blind to start off official National dog work. Now, talk about a relief for that handler, which was Barb Howard with Prime! The pressure of running first goes without saying, and she can breathe a sigh of relief for now. A big bonus for her? Well, she'll never have to run Prime first at any other point in this stake...

More soon...