Follow a Hound to Retirement – Edition 007

Hello NLGA Dog Blog Readers…it’s Max again!

Whew!  It’s been a crazy week at my house!  I’ll tell you about it another day.  For now, we’ll focus on our ‘follow a hound to retirement’ friends!

It’s been two weeks since we last talked about our racing friends.  And a lot of racing has occurred since then…each of our six hounds has run two races!  That means the six of them ran a combined total distance of three and three-quarter miles in 12 races.  

Last time we talk about our ‘follow a hound to retirement’ friends, I explained how grades and moving up and down grades at Bluffs Run works.  If you need a quick refresher, take a look again. 

Last time we looked at Vincent’s racing.  Today we’ll take another look at his racing.  We will also look at Destiny’s racing and Cool’s racing.  Next time we will look at the racing of Snow Ball, Smith, and Crown.

Here is a summary of Vincent’s racing:

Remember the last time we talked Vincent had just won his January 16^th Grade B race which moved him up a grade, to Grade A, for his next race.  On January 23^rd he finished 3^rd in Grade A.  A 3^rd place finish starts the count over again (indicated by the black dash).  Vincent ran again tonight and finished 6^th in Grade A which starts the countdown to dropping a grade (indicated by the purple 1).  His next race will again be in Grade A.  Here is a picture of big boy Vincent (all 92 lbs of him!) going into the first turn in his race tonight.

Next up, Destiny.  Here is a summary of her racing:

Destiny has consistently been running in Grade D since I finished up my racing career.  Each time she finishes 2^nd or 3^rd the count starts over again.  In her last 9 races, she has started her count over 5 times!  She finished 2^nd in her most recent race on January 27^th.  In that race she was really quick out of the box.  Below is a picture.  Destiny is wearing the yellow silks out of box 6.  Notice how she is a stride down the track and a few of the other hounds are still mostly in the box.  Now that is acceleration!

And finally, Cool.  Here is a summary of his racing:

 Cool was running in Grade D when I finished my racing career.  He actually was close to grading out at one point.  He finished 4^th, 4^th, and 6^th.  If he would have finished 4^th or below in his race on December 29^th he may have graded out.  But he didn’t.  Instead he finished 2^nd on December 29^th which starts the count over again.  On January 11^th he won his Grade D race which moved him up a grade.  He has run three Grade C races since moving up and has placed 5^th, 4^th, and 3^rd.  His 3^rd place finish in his most recent race on January 29^th starts the count over again.  In that race Cool played it cool and came from the very back of the pack to finish 3^rd.  Here is a picture from just before the finish line.

We will talk about following Snow Ball, Smith, and Crown to retirement next time.  Smith and Crown race their next races tomorrow, January 31^st.  And Snow Ball races next on February 1^st. 

Until next time,

~Max