SDAS Championship Season 2024/25 - Proudly Sponsored by Skinner’s
Race 3: Bowhill House
Finding good racing trails for our members and competitors has always been something SDAS strives for, takes pride in, and by goodness, we certainly found some technical and fabulous trails at Bowhill House.
What an amazing venue for our Championship Race 3 and all thanks to Dangermouse aka Tracy, who not only discovered this wee gem, but also spent quite a few trips to this magical place for some trail checking in the lead up to the race!
A little different to some previous set ups had the start chute and finish chute of this race, adjacent to each other.
We always love the flurry of excitement and noise of those eager to start racing, welcoming home those who have already raced around exploring the trail.
A few more hands at the start/finish are always a requisite for orchestrating these types of races, but its absolutely worth it.
Saturday morning was dry, bright and beautiful - the perfect conditions for racing, which commenced at 0900hrs post safety briefing. Competitors from North and South of the border coming together to enjoy some brand new trails and breathtaking scenery with the stars of the show, their amazing dogs!
And yes, those dogs, were epic!
Some absolutely incredible quick times seen by teams across the board.
Competitor Roddy Milne, DBM, utterly smashing his Saturday time of 09:06:01 by achieving a phenomenal 08:40:64 on Sundays race and securing the fastest time of the weekend!!!!!!!!
Coming a very close second to the Roddys quickest time was Competitor Jane Lothian DBW with a staggering 09:26:40 on her Sunday race!! We aren’t fibbing when we say these dogs were on fire!!!
In among these speedy times were Competitors Grant Kerr, DBM, with an awesome 09:33:93 and one for the teams, Competitor Alfie Blyth-Russell, DR4NB on his Sunday run with a time of 09:30:50! Unfortunately for Alfie, his full race run had to be DSQ due to a technical error on day 1 when he accidentally took a wrong turn. Its always amazing sporstmanship to see a Competitor cross the finish line and immediately mentioned they turned wrong (which would have given them an unfair advantage over the other Competitors)
As always, the fun doesn’t stop when the racing finishes and post Saturday racing we were all kept entertained with our little Pawpackers!
These babies are the heart and soul of every race weekend. Their joy and enthusiasm to participate is contagious. Its always wonderful to see all the adults gather around to support and cheer them on. This excursion had them running uphill, zooming back down on balance bikes (well supervised and padded out for safety) and then racing back up again with their bestest doggy buddy!
Sunday came around all too quickly and once again we were filling the beautiful woods with screams and shrieks of excitement, and that was just the Competitors!!! Lol!
Over the duration of the weekend it was lovely to be visited by and have chats with some of the local residents and Estate personnel. It is refreshing to have local folk come along to our events to catch a glimpse of our manic, crazy hobby and for us to have a chance to relay how deep our passion for this sport goes.
Among those visiting was none other than Mr Peter Hannah, our amazing Skinner’s Rep!
Our combined passion for Sleddog Sports is matched only with Peter’s love of his work, his pride in the Skinner’s name and reputation, and also his own love of his working dogs.
We do hope to be seeing Peter visit another one of our races again very soon this season.
All our 1st to 3rd Podium placings were awarded some fantastic prizes courtesy of our phenomenal sponsors, Skinner’s Dog Food. Established in 1688, Skinner’s has been family run for seven generations. They pride themselves on creating and producing amazing feed for your dogs, and we are honoured and delighted to be sponsored by them. Thank you Skinner’s!
The Wheel of FURtune was spun at Prizegiving on Sunday and was awarded to our SDAS Member Melanie Grier! Well Done Melanie!
A Massive heartfelt thanks to Bowhill House for accommodating us all weekend, we thoroughly enjoyed our visit and hope to be back soon!
And a massive Thank You to Kelly Riddle Photography for some of the amazing pictures above!
We hope you all had a wonderful time, and we will see you all at our next race: Darnaway: Leafy Heights
Your, sdasfam!
Comments