It is difficult to compare racing in Europe to racing in the United States. The whippets began racing in the United States about 1958. Its only been in the last 5 years that the other sighthounds have been given the chance to start their own racing clubs such as NOTRA; National Oval Track Racing Association, and LGRA; Large Gazehound Racing Association. While whippets draw big entries from their race clubs for both straight racing and oval racing, the other breeds of sighthounds are still trying to persuade people to come race and have quite low entries for their breed. Hopefully this will change as the sport gains in popularity.
I have always loved performance dog sports and my first dogs were afghan hounds back in the 70's. The dog shows did not draw my attention, but the running events and hunting captured my heart. There is nothing like seeing a sighthound run doing what it was bred to do. One of my last afghans, Kabul, not only had an obedience title, but his coursing title FCh, and an open field title of CM, courser of Merit. After Kabul died I decided I wanted another afghan and began to look around for something that I could race. This led me to the el Durani Afghans and Werner Wirkotsch who entrusted me with one of his dear puppies and the rest is history in progress. Ami has earned her field champion title (FCh.) and her straight racing title (GRC) in just a year. She is almost finished with her title of oval racer (ORC). In the United States the racing dogs are given points for the races they win, after they accumulate the required amount of points defeating dogs they are awarded the racing titles.
SIGHTHOUND RACES IN USA:
The sighthounds in American race in two different types of races, 200 yard straight racing and oval racing. Most clubs set up straight racing on Saturday and oval racing on Sunday. Many of the dogs run both days. This is quite different from how it is done in Europe where the dogs only run one day of oval. A lot of people travel and like to camp overnight and run two days.
Most tracks in America are set up on school grounds or at parks, and very few places have enough space to have a permanent track setup as we have at our ranchWindyglen. 10 years ago we had a tiny dream to take our property and set up a straight track and oval track to practice our dogs for racing. Each year we tried to add something else to our dream. Soon we began receiving requests from people to board and train their sighthounds for racing, and now we have a waiting list. We have taken in many breeds such as afghans, borzoi, basenji, pharaoh, saluki and sloughi and qualified and trained them for racing straight and oval. We breed a couple whippet litters a year and we have been fortunate enough to get many of our whippets into race homes and introduce new people to the sport of racing.
Timing is not officially done in racing here because the clubs do not have equipment to do this and have used only hand watches to time their own dogs. We however are quite fortunate to have a timer which was brought to us by Werner when I got my afghan. Now we are timing the straight racing and oval racing. It is a great source of information about your dog and his progress. We enjoy posting the times with the race results on our website.
RACING AT WINDYGLEN
We have been hosting race meets here at our facility in Northern California for 10 years. We hold about 5 weekend or racing that we host ourselves and other clubs rent our ranch to hold their race meets. Normally on Saturday we run a 200 yard straight race for whippets and all other sighthounds, and on Sunday we host a 350 yard oval for whippets and all other sighthounds as well. Since we are a permanent site we have been chosen in the past to host the National events for Whippet racing and ran over 150 whippets with a drag lure on Sat and about 90 on Sunday with a drag lure.
For our drag lure we use a squawker from the National Greyhound Association that looks like a big fur possum with a raccoon tail and it really squawks loud. Along with this we have the traditional white plastic bag, but we also are fortunate to have a rabbitry close by and we get fresh rabbit skins and add to the lure. Some of the breeds that are not so keen to run will run hard when they know that little skin is attached.
We turned out barn into a club house and set up our score board there and have our lunches and BBQ dinners. We gather after the end or our race meets and announce the winners and present awards for the dogs of each breed. We also officially recognize the "Most Appreciated" dog who ran all programs but was the last dog. After all if it were not for these D, C and B dogs there would be no A dogs! Our dogs run in grades with A being the fastest and each week results of race meets all over the United States are sent to a central data bank and computed for the grading of the race for the next week.
Our oval races usually have only 4 dogs racing. This is for the safety of the dogs since our oval tracks are much smaller than the ones in Europe running 350 yards or less, but our straight racing allows for 6 dogs to run together for 200 yards straight.
We have been timing the dogs and are the only club in the United States that has a laser timer that will record all the dogs. I sincerely hope that at some point in the future we can find affordable timing equipment so all clubs will be able to time. My dream would be to have timing equipment with the camera like I saw in Hildesheim at the races.
COURSING
We do not do much lure coursing and prefer racing, however we feel it is important to have the coursing titles on the dogs because ASFA has been recognized for many years and is a well supported running event for sighthounds, and racing falls second to coursing in entries here. My husband is an ASFA (American Sight-hound Field Association) judge and an AKC (American Kennel Club) coursing judge, but we prefer racing .
MY EUROPEAN AFGHAN
Esira el Durani who we call "Ami", is a dream come true. Her type, attitude and heart to run is combined in a package of silly antics. She has a kindred sprit to that of a bulldozer and is headstrong and determined. She is a true afghan hound. When I look at her I see what afghans should be (in my opinion of course). There is no mistake she is an afghan hound. When I first decided to get a dog from racing lines I was a little worried that I might not like the type of dog because I was use to the American Dog standards and now feel bad that the show afghans of today have come so far from the dogs of yesterday. She has opened my eyes to the beauty of the old afghans and what they are all about. At one race she actually was able to grab the lure at the end of the race through her muzzle, rip if from the line and run away with it. When she found she could not escape, she began to try and dig a hole to bury it. We laughed for days over it.
My husband has been in whippets and salukis for over 30 years, now he appreciates the afghans and maintains that until Ami and Sturigs he never met any he liked! Maybe it is because they can run and have outgoing personalities like all the race dogs in Europe I met.
IMPRESSIONS OF RACING IN EUROPE
European racing! Well, there is nothing to compare. Everything is done for the dogs from having a vet on duty at the races to how well the tracks are presented for the dogs to run on and the stopping areas at the end of the races where the sand is soft on the dogs feet. We have added a sandy stopping area to our straight track and are quite happy with it. The European racing club memberships are very large and events ran very smooth from the maintenance of the permanent tracks to the club houses and food. I chatted with a veterinarian who was on duty at one of the races in Hildesheim Germany and was fascinated to learn about the pre-race check and what the dogs are checked for, and that the race secretary checks the passports for the health records before each race. I especially like passports issued for each racing dog. It is a wonderful way to keep official records where only the race secretary enters information from the races, coursing or shows, and I hope that someday in America we can adopt this too. The measuring of the whippets one time only and recording the height in the passport is something I wish we could adopt this very instant because our whippets are measured each time they race!
My visit to Europe was a trip of a lifetime. I met so many wonderful people and their dogs, found language was not a barrier when it came to talking "dogs". At the EM in Belgium, I shopped at the vendors tents and partied in the big tent and drank great beer and met some new whippet, afghan and borzoi friends! I took many more photos of the tracks in Europe and many castles which to this day I am still sharing with as many people as I can. On my website I even devoted a whole section just to my trip! It was sad for the end of my visit to come and good-byes had to be said to Werner and Bettina my hosts who took such excellent care of me, and all the friends I left behind. It is my hope that more people will want to strive to learn more about racing from those who have been doing it so long and well. If it had not been for a wonderful man Werner Wirkotsch who insisted that I come to Europe to stay with them and visit castles and race tracks and race dogs I would never have taken that first air plane trip! It took a lot of persuading to get me to fly. All of this because of one little red afghan puppy named Ami.
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