We keep bumping into people that ask us about the Beagle racing. It’s hard to describe just how much fun it is for dogs and their two-legged companions, so I thought I’d put together a montage of the highlights from last year. It’s brought back lots of great memories – I’d forgotten we had so many lovely sunny days!!

Make sure you’ve got your sound switched on for full effect (or off if you’re at work!)

It’s quite a big file so may be slow to download. Use this link if you prefer to download the whole file to your hard drive and play it from there:

Download Video Clip

Beagle Racing is starting up again on Sunday 29th March, at the earlier time of 2.15. If you’ve got a Beagle and you’re within reasonable travelling distance of Kincardine Bridge then it’s not to be missed! The great thing about it is that every dog has a chance of winning something sooner or later – whether they’re a speed demon or not – because some races are handicapped. You can see photos and video clips of last season’s racing by browsing our Beagle Racing category here (there are quite a few pages, so keep hitting the Previous Entries link at the bottom of the page to work back through them).

The races are held on a short, straight & fenced track at Inch Farm, which is pretty close to  Longannet Power Station ( FK10 4AA). Here are rough directions if you’re coming from the Glasgow/Edinburgh side of the Firth of Forth:

After you cross Kincardine bridge keep following the road around to the right (following the coast). After a short distance you’ll come to a roundabout. Take the third exit (towards Longannet Power Station). A short distance down the road (perhaps 100m) you’ll see a farm road on the right. There will be cars parked in the field and Whippets & Beagles. Turn down the farm road and then an immediate left onto a muddy, bumpy track. Go straight past the little bit of parking on the left and drive into the field to park.

You can also take a look through the club’s forums here. Don’t be alarmed by all the Whippet stuff, you’ve got the right place! The track is used primarily by the Caledonian Thistle Pedigree Whippet Racing Club, but they let the Beaglers have a go too.

We took Beanie Beagle racing today for the first time in a month. We missed one week when we all went down to collect Biggles, and there’s been two weeks that the track was flooded.

It was a lovely sunny day so we decided that we’d all go and take Biggles along for the socialisation. He was as good as gold and slept through the entire afternoon. He only woke for a few minutes when Jan kidnapped him and took him to meet everyone. We learned a few useful things about handling two naughty, noisy beagles. Jan also demonstrated how to hold a wiggly puppy without dropping it and informed us that Biggles is in fact not a huge pup but normal size. Nevertheless, at 7 weeks old he was too big for the little coat that little Beanie was wearing until about four months old!

Scheduled for today was the final points race (After which the winner of the points trophy would be decided) and the maiden trophy race. The maiden race is open to all dogs that have not yet won a race.

Winner of the maiden race was Jan Bell’s Inca (who is no slouch and actually came fourth in the derby). Inca’s sister Abbey won the Bitch trophy a couple of months ago.

Beanie came first in today’s points race. She won the last points race so was handicapped by 6 yards in this race. However, we also had weight handicaps today and as she’s so much lighter than all the other dogs she still ended up with a 10 yard lead over Murphy, and 8 yard lead over Sam and a 2 yard lead over Abbey. The trophy for the points race goes to the dog that’s earned the most points over the entire season. And that was Murphy (who also won the derby).

As you can see from the photos, it’s getting dark very early. Next week will be the final race day of the season.

But by the start of next season Biggles will be 8 months old and ready to start joining Beanie at the race track.