dmdsmoxie

Hi Marie, Sure, send the info to dmdsmoxie@ yahoo. com no spaces, and I'll have a look. Dick

Hi Irene, All that shows are two schooling races at Mardi Gras and she ran last in both of them. One of them she was OOP, which is out of picture, but not because she fell, but because she was outrun. Many tracks stop the finish line camera after 25 lengths behind. She ran in 2007 when races on GD were still put in by hand and she shows no races on GD. These two schooling races show up on Trackinfo so there is nothing to really go by. Mardi Gras is a good track so I would think they would have tried her at a lower end track before retiring her, but I have no way of knowing that for sure. They may have thought she ran so poorly that it was best to retire her. Dick

Pd Patsy Cline ran 12 schooling races at three different tracks, Flagler, Naples and Daytona. She didn't do well in any of those schooling races finishing 6th, 7th or 8th in many of them. She showed no early speed, no rush to the turn and no closing ability. That combination made her an early candidate to end up on your couch where I am sure she is a great pet. Dick

You might be interested to see this article Martin Roper wrote in 2008. Everything You Know Is Wrong In the 1970s, an American comedy troupe comparable to Monty Python was the Firesign Theater. They never reached the superstar status of their English counterparts, but their albums were popular on college campuses across the country. The title of one of them, Everything You Know is Wrong, has become a personal motto of mine—it seems that almost daily new discoveries in science and exploration make us reassess what we once held to be true. The same can be said for Greyhounds. A long-held belief, published as fact in dozens of books and repeated on hundreds of web sites, is that the breed is of Egyptian or Middle-Eastern origin. The assertion is puzzling because there are no Greyhound breeds presently residing in the Middle East. The Saluki, Sloughi, and Afghan Hound are clearly of a different type than modern Greyhounds, and it’s hard to imagine that they descend from a common ancestor. On the other hand, Greyhounds and Greyhound-type dogs are common in central Europe, Spain and the British Isles. As early as 1853, John Henry Walsh, writing under the pseudonym "Stonehenge," made a clear case for a Celtic origin for the breed in his book The Greyhound, but not too many authors since him seem to have been able to make the same connection. From the beginning of the first millenium B.C., the Greeks were seafarers and traders and regularly visited ports all along the southeastern Mediterranean in what is now Egypt and the Middle East. Much of what we know of that area in those times was recorded by Greek historians and there is no mention of Greyhounds. The breed was completely unknown to them prior to 200 B.C., the time of their first encounters with the Keltoi, as they called them, a tribal culture from the north. In 300 B.C., Xenophon made no mention of Greyhounds in his discussion of dog breeds in his treatise On Hunting. Two centuries later, the poet Grattius wrote of the Celts’ dogs that, "...swifter than thought or a winged bird it runs, pressing hard on beasts it has found." Arrian, another Greek, but who wrote in Latin, clearly identified the Vertragus, the predecessor of the modern Greyhound. The Celtic culture flourished from what is now Austria, west to northern Spain, and north to the farthest reaches of the British Isles and Ireland. Everywhere they went they took their dogs with them and left offshoots of the Vertragus. In Spain it was the Galgo; in the British Isles, it was a bewildering array of sighthounds in a wide variety of sizes and coats, from giant dogs we now call Wolfhounds to "Tumblers," by contemporary accounts a Whippet-sized dog. The Celts made no distinction among their sighthound varieties. To add to the confusion, English writers up until the 16th century called all the larger Celtic dogs "Greyhounds," and the dog we call the Greyhound today, the "Coursing dog." Irish Wolfhounds in those days were prized in Europe for hunting Boar, and the demand for the largest Greyhounds "of the Irish type" was great and they fetched tremendous prices. The present Greyhounds, the ones we love, are the result of the coursing craze after the death of the Forest Laws in the 17th century which prevented commoners from coursing or even owning Greyhounds. The coursing rules of the day dictated a very specific range of performance and traits, and those are the ones we see in our dogs today. Almost all the other varieties of Celtic sighthounds disappeared. Even the Irish Wolfhound is a re-creation of a breed that had all but gone extinct. Two recent landmark genetic studies have confirmed Walsh to be correct. The first, "Multiple and Ancient Origins of the Domestic Dog" (1997), traced the mitochondrial DNA from ancient times to the present day Greyhound. Interestingly, three other breeds derive from the same strain, the St. Bernard, Miniature Schnauzer, and the Irish Setter, which suggests male-line introductions of other breeds to Greyhound-line females who were the foundations of those breeds. All three originate in areas where Celtic culture flourished. The second, and more definitive study, "Genetic Structure of the Purebred Domestic Dog" (2004), used Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms (SNPs), clumps of identical DNA strings that appear in groups of breeds, but often not in others. The study clearly showed that Salukis and Afghan Hounds were part of an "Asian" group along with the Chow, Akita, and Shar-pei. Predictably, the Greyhound appeared in what I’ll call the "Celtic" group along with the Irish Wolfhound, but also as a progenitor of more recent breeds including the Whippet, Borzoi, Belgian Sheepdog, Belgian Tervuren, Collie, Shetland Sheepdog, and the St. Bernard. A glance at a map clearly shows that all those breeds originate within the influence of Celtic culture in Europe. It’s time the Celts got their due as the caretakers of the breed, not Egyptian Pharoahs or Mesopotamian kings who never saw a Greyhound.

I look at the lines on GD and Trackinfo. Kuchur ran over 70 races between Wonderland and Raynham. He wasn't usually a great breaker, but when he rushed the turn and was 3rd or better he was usually in the money or won. His problem was many times he broke 6th, 7th or 8th and didn't get to the turn in a position to challenge for the win. He was a pretty good racer spending a lot of his career in B and A. He would drop to C, but usually after a few racer would win and be back in B. Adelheide shows 27 races all at Raynham. She was all about speed. She would be 1st, 2nd or 3rd out of the box and she would have to make the turn 1st. From there she would carry that speed to the stretch abd hope to hang on for the win. She was what we call short, meaning she had trouble going the 550 yards, so she only won one race.

Cals Bambam Sam Ran 69 races between Daytona Beach and Mobile. He did school a couple of times at Palm Beach. Cals Bambam Sam had no early speed and was many times 6th, 7th or 8th out of the box. However, he could close, but not with one burst of speed down the stretch, he just gradually passed dogs throughout the race. He might be 8th out of the box and 7th to the turn and 5th at the far turn and finish 3rd. Just a long gradual gain of position. Dick

Super Hero ran over 140 races between Flagler, Mardi Gras, Sarasota, Orange Park and Pensacola. Her biggest problem was she was pretty good getting out of the box, but had no rush to the turn. This is always a huge problem for a dog because if you get out 2nd, 3rd or 4th and have no rush the other dogs catch you and you get in trouble at the turn many times. Once around the turn she could close some and had a lot of 3rd and 4th place finishes. If she didn't get eaten up at the turn she would have a chance to win or be 2nd. She had 11 wins, 19 2nds, 30 3rds and 23 4ths. If she had any rush to the turn she would have had a lot more wins and 2nds, but she was what she was. She ran hard most races because it isn't easy to have dogs catch and pass you and then come back and pass them again.

Try giving him ginger snap cookies or anything with ginger in it about 30 minutes before you go for a ride. If the motion sickness isn't to bad this will help. Dick

Good the trainer remembered you were interested in adopting her and will keep you informed as to what is going on.

She ran a good race. She ran hard and did a good job to be 4th. AA is tough and the winner was smoking running just 4 tenths of a second off the track record. Very nice picture.

That was a nice race. You have to love the 8 box. The 7 came out and went a little to the inside giving her a clear lane to run and she rushed the turn 3rd and held her position all the way around.

Most Aggressive ran 80 races all at Wheeling one of our best tracks. She was all about speed, getting to the turn on top and taking that speed all the way to the finish line if she could. She ran the early part of her career in A and AA. Later in her career she was more B and C with a little A thrown in. While she could get caught she didn't give the lead up easily.

That was a huge race. While there was a jam up in back of her it really didn't matter as there was no catching her today. So she is on to AA. Hopefully she doesn't draw in against the real iron. She is the 2 dog. http://www.trackinfo.com/video-box.jsp?raceid=gwd%2420150725a10&runnername=Pizza+Joint

Looks like she has a belly full. I'll say she has 8.

She got in a little trouble at the 1st turn and that probably cost her 3rd, but she ran hard and that is all you can ask. Plus the dog that caught her at the end is a good closer that is mostly a AA/A dog.

At the track all your dogs got everything mixed together. The beginning of this video shows them mixing the feed.

Nice picture and 2nd is good.

Wild Sparkler ran 50 races all at Mobile.She had a little early speed and could get to the turn 2nd, 3rd or 4th, however she wasn't a good closer so usually stayed around 2nd, 3rd or 4th. If she got to the turn near the back of the pack that was where she stayed most of the time. So while she was in the money a number of times, winning was tough for her. Unfortunately there are no videos from Mobile. I would say she was retired because her last 10 races or so were not very good except for her last race where she ran 2nd in grade E. I would guess the decision had been made before that race to retire her and that is what they did. I see no indication of an injury although not every potentil injury shows up in the charts. Dick

Hopefully she can take advantage of the 1 box. Like all athletes she has had trouble in the upper grades as she has gotten older and in a few months she will be 4.

Fuzzys Joy Behar Ran 17 races at Sarasota. She did school at Mardi Gras, but never ran a maiden race there. She had one good maiden win going box to wire, but had a lot of trouble breaking after that. She was near the back the back of the pack most of her other races because she had trouble breaking. She did drop to E and won that race, but overall she was destined to be on your couch and not at the track.

Kiowa Wish Wish ran 93 races between Wheeling and Palm Beach. Wheeling is still one of the top tracks in the country so the competition is tough and Kiowa Wish Wish needed to be in the top two or three to the turn. When he could do that he was usually in the money or won the race, his problem was he had a lot of trouble getting in the top three to the turn at Wheeling. Once at PB he had a little more success putting himself in position to win. They eventually put him in the longer 660 yd races and he did okay with the longer distance He was all over the place as far as what grade he was in, getting to A at times, but he was mostly a C dog which is pretty good considering he ran a good part of his career at Wheeling.

CTW Flo's Cafe ran about 180 races between Tri-State and B'ham with all but 11 of them at B'ham. She was a dog that needed to be on top at the turn to have a chance to win. While she didn't do much at TS she went to A at B'ham and won some A races. She is a dog with a lot of 6th, 7th and 8th place finishes because she would give it up early if not on top and drift towards the back. However, the races she got on top she usually carried her speed well into the stretch and sometimes got caught. Just FYI: She raced until she was 4 years old so she raced for about 2 1/2 years. Her first maiden race was Jan. 1, 2012 and her last was May 21, 2014

I am glad I can give people some insight as to how the dogs ran before they became pets.

Pat C Drove ran 80 races all at PB. He had a good break and a good rush to the turn and he needed that because he was a dog that needed to be on top at the turn to have a chance to win. Some dogs that have to be on top to win will quit as the race goes along, but Pat C Drove wasn't like that. A number of times if he was 2nd or 3rd to the turn he would end up 2nd, 3rd or 4th. So while he never passed dogs he didn't quit either. Even with the lead at times he could get caught in the stretch. He was pretty much a B/C dog, winning in B to get to A, but never winning A. That made him a pretty nice racer and one the kennel is glad to have. Dick

Yea, Richard Kimble was born to be on your couch and not at the track.