Today we had another handicap race. A 170 yard race which is great for Beanie as she’s got good stamina. The dogs were all weighed and the lighter dogs were given a 1 yard per pound head start. Beanie is the lightest dog at 22lbs. Murphy (the Derby winner and officially the fastest dog) was the heaviest at 39 lbs (I think that’s 3 lbs lighter than he was at the last handicap race!?).That would have given Beanie a 17 yard head start over Murphy, but Beanie and Murphy didn’t race each other until the final, and in that race we all agreed to ‘race rules’ which meant that the biggest head start a dog can have is 10 yards.

Beanie won the race, which was no surprise to anyone. However, Murphy made up quite a bit of ground – I’m not sure how much but enough to put him in second place.

We were interested to see how Beanie would do if we reversed the handicap. So this time around Murphy had a 10 yard head start over Beanie. Beanie likes to be out in front and we thought she’d run faster if she started from behind. And sure enough, she managed to maintain the distance between her and Murphy this time around. Which meant that she and Murphy were running at pretty much the same speed. Graham suggested a scratch race between Beanie and Murhpy just to see what would happen. Murphy won by less than a dog length.

We’ve noticed a big improvement in Beanie’s speed every week since she started racing. For about three weeks now she’s been getting close to Murphy, but the gap is closing VERY slowly. She’s widening the gap between her and some of the other dogs, but Murphy’s holding on to his lead. We suspect that Murphy is getting fitter and faster every week so our little pup is going to have to work very hard to catch him :)

We also got a little bit of good news with regards to drag hunting. One of the Whippet owners told us about a lady that’s absolutely nuts about hunting with dogs. She’s not too well at the moment, but once she’s better he’s promised to put us in touch with her. Beanie absolutely loves the racing, and we’re sure the sprinting is great for her health (well certainly you can’t beat sprinting for building fitness in people). But as she’s a Beagle we feel that she needs a good bit of long distance running with a pack too. She likes to run with us, but from her point of view you just can’t beat a pack of baying Beagles and something smelly to chase!