ARHA Little Pack Grand Nationals 2016
When we made our decision to attend the Little Pack Grand Nationals we knew it was going to be big - but we had no idea how big is would actually be. We had serious thoughts about heading down to Russell Springs, KY the night before so we wouldn't have to travel so far so early in the morning. But we decided to leave the morning of the hunt instead and we were honestly thinking we would be back in Frankfort before the day was out due to not making it through the first round of competition! I know that sounds negative but we were thinking statistically - if 150 hounds were entered in the opens class, after the first round of competition 80% of the hounds would not be moving on to the semi-finals! So with expectations in check we headed down south to the Russell County Beagle Club for the biggest hunt of our short trial career!
We arrived early, thank goodness, and found a nice place to park in Veterans Memorial Park. After entering both Jewel and Shortie in opens and Shortie on the bench, we had a nice wait until the casts were drawn. Fortunately we had plenty of time to catch up with friends like Paul (who was also in attendance with Thunder)! There ended up being 153 hounds entered in the opens class, 91 entered in the champion class, and 41 entered in the grand champion class for a total of 285 hounds plus 30 entries on the bench! That's a lot of hounds in one place!
Shortie was drawn into cast 11 (out of 31) and got to head out in the first group to the running grounds. Jonathan handled Shortie during his cast ( I was not there) which was run at R.F. Tarter WMA and they had a fantastic cast. There was running just about the who time and Shortie scored 145 points (most for checks) during the cast! He won handily with the next dog scoring only 60 points! Shortie was moving on! Paul's male dog Thunder was drawn into cast 18 and was allowed to head out in the second group to the running grounds. Neither Jonathan or myself were present during his cast but he did end up winning the cast and moving on as well! Congrats Thunder!
Jewel was drawn in cast 28 and went out in the second to last group of the day. She was sure anxious to get out and run since she had been on a tie-out the whole day seeing dogs come and go! We finally arrived at our running grounds and released the hounds. It took a few minutes but a hounds struck on a rabbit. When the rabbit was struck Jewel was in a different part of the hunting area searching for her own, when she heard the other dogs (3) working the track she immediately took off in their direction but unfortunately for her score, she ended up jumping her own rabbit on her way to the other dogs. Due to the rules of ARHA, myself and another handler were required to handle our dogs (still running a different rabbit) and put them back on the original rabbit that was struck. By some miracle we were able to catch our dogs as the crossed a dirt road trailing their rabbit and put them back on the original race. When I say that it was unfortunate for her score what I mean by that is because it wasn't the original rabbit Jewel would not have gotten jump and strike points even though she did that work on her own. After our hounds were put on the original rabbit the race was a good one! The didn't break down hardly at all. After dead track was called when the rabbit found sanctuary in a groundhog hole there were only 2 checks scored for the entire race which lasted close to 30 minutes. We moved on to a different area where unfortunately no rabbits were jumped - we ended the last 13 minutes of the hunt with no change in score. Jewel ended up coming in 3rd in her cast and did not move on to the semi-finals.
After returning from the running grounds we then had a break while the last group of casts (first rounds of champions and grands) went out to run. With Shortie moving on to the semi-finals we quickly realized that we were ill prepared for this outcome. Due to the high amount of entries in the opens class we knew that the semi-finals wouldn't be run until the following day. So we needed to figure out what our plan was for the following day. We decided to share a room at a local motel with Paul instead of heading back home and driving another 2 hours back to the club in the morning. We stopped to eat dinner and book our room before returning for the bench show.
I believe that there were around 8 hounds entered in the opens class for the bench show. I was nervous for him to compete with so many hounds in such a big hunt. We were all pretty cramped on the tables for this show with so many hounds but Shortie did a fantastic job standing still and not moving his feet while being stacked. There were 2 or 3 hounds that were asked to be put down so the judge could compare the best hounds head to head. Shortie was not one of those dogs. He stayed still the entire time but was ultimately passed over for best male and second best. Hindsight is 20/20 but after thinking about his stack, I think his back feet were a little to far forward causing his back to roach slightly. I think this may be one reason he was passed over. I am still proud of how he behaved during this bench show though!
After a fairly restful night in the motel we arrived on the scene for the second day of Little Pack Grand Nationals! Shortie was drawn into the 7th cast (of 7) of the semi-final opens while Thunder was drawn into the 3rd cast. Since there were still first round casts that needed to be run for grands, neither of the boys got to run in the first group. Thunder got to go in the second group to the running grounds but unfortunately placed 3rd in his cast and didn't get a shot at placing in the top 10. Around 1PM Shortie was allow to go with the third group to the running grounds. We arrived in a very promising place but surprisingly no rabbits were jumped during the whole 1 hour hunt. While most hounds hunted very well and stayed busy they couldn't get one up! So unfortunately due to the ARHA rules the judges had to decide the placement based on hunt and handle. Sadly Shortie was placed 2nd in the cast and with a score of 0 had almost no chance of getting into the top 10. After arriving back at the clubhouse we verified that Shortie did not place in the top 10 due to his low score.
I can honestly say that attending an ARHA Big 5 hunt is one of the most interesting and entertaining events I have attended so far in our trialing career! After the way that Shortie's last cast ended I have been doing some serious thinking about the ARHA rules regarding ties especially when no rabbits were jumped in the cast. I'd really like to see something like additional time added to casts where no rabbits were jumped. We did not decided to attend the Indiana State Hunt that took place the weekend after but we are looking forward to possibly attending the Little World Hunt in Hartford, KY!
