Page 21 - The Sloughi Review - Issue 3 - Final Copy

T H E S L O U G H I R E V I E W
Despite an exceptional performance that
made O’Dah the number 1 all breeds in
straight racing in early December of 2007,
he did not win the LGRA K’Lar Award that
year due to a last minute rescheduling. On
December 23, after the East Coast COBRA
race day was cancelled on December 2,
Ann Chamberlain announced the
rescheduling of the event. Interestingly,
this rescheduling happened 2 days after
the Grading Guide, where all the year’s
results and placements were posted, 6
days before the event to take place on
December 30, one day before the end of
the year.
At the time, most competitors were
celebrating the Holidays, and those who
could have competed on the East Coast
could not drive across major snow storms
and ice to the event*. An East Coast Italian
Greyhound picked up 3.50 points more to
take the first place away from O’Dah, 1 day
before the end of the year. In my mind,
O’Dah remains the true winner of the 2007
K’Lar award, no matter how in the end club
politics outmaneuvered his great
performance.
*Editor’s note: Rescheduling after all the results had
been accounted for all the dogs racing that year
enabled the people racing their dogs at COBRA to
calculate their number of entries in such a way that
they could beat their competitors.
O’Dah coursing with his sister Omneya, Iowa Coursing
Association © Jo Stewart
2 1
Another memorable event was the lure
coursing ASFA International Invitational in
Oklahoma in 2009. I could attend only the
Sunday event, which was in hindsight a
good choice as Saturday saw flooding from
extensive rain in the entire area. When I
left for the 800-mile trip, I only knew
about bad weather around the target area
but when I had to turn off the interstate
and came nearer to the racing place, there
was flooding everywhere.
Luckily I was driving a 4-wheel drive car
with a high clearance and two Sloughis in
it. One of the bridges I had to cross had
water flowing over it and I could only
guess how deep it might be. I made it to
the other side and when I reached the
campground, the fields on which the event
took place were essentially covered with
several inches of water. O’Dah was not too
happy about that whereas his companion,
Mujiir, did not mind. This thus turned out
to be one of the very few cases where
O’Dah did not win, but certainly had not
much to do with his performance but a lot
with his unwillingness to get wet. As an
aside, many of the campers on this soaked
ground got stuck in deep mud and the
place was pretty much in ruins after
everyone was pulled out with a tractor.