The Tehachapi mountains overlooking the field
Finding Greyhound competition at amateur race meets is pretty tough out here in California, particularly the northern end where we live. So, when our friends, Ellen and Mike Cobleigh, said that they were interested in running their Greyhounds at the LGRA meet down in Tehachapi we packed up all the dogs and headed down there to meet them.
Tehachapi is a small city in Kern county just west of Mojave. Although small and out-of-the-way, it's got some beautiful landscapes, and a nice little sports field that is perfect for racing. It's a good five hour drive from where we live, so we decided to drive down the night before and stayed at a motel in Mojave.
Check-in for the meet started bright and early at 7:30am. Temperatures can get pretty high in that area, especially in the summertime, so we wanted to do our best to beat the heat. It was a small meet, but with everyone's help we got through pretty efficiently, and finished around 1:00 in the afternoon.
As it turned out, Hattie was pretty un-enthused about racing that day (for whatever reason, lol). She finished all three programs, but just barely. I don't know if it was the heat, or the elevation, or what, but her lackluster performance was definitely the polar opposite of the Agars.
Final scores
Pi, Patti, and Gil ran three very exciting races, with Pi ending up the victor of the meet. He and Gil are always an interesting match for one another. I think if Gil were younger he would probably edge out his son in the speed department, but as it stands now, Pi manages to beat his dad just barely. It would be interesting to see how they would finish on a longer track. Gil always seems to be gaining on Pi more and more towards the end of the race.
Anyway, it was a really nice little meet, and as always there was a lot of good company. We may not be able to make it down to all the southern California race meets, but we will try to return again soon.
