Last weekend, we participated in European coursing championships in Marianske Lazne (CZ) with our beloved borzois CALINKA ZWEZDA HORNADA and ALYOSHA SAGAN MRAJA (18 months old). There were 75 registered borzois, 42 females and 33 males! Unbelievable!!!

Unfortunately, our Calinka was in the worst physical condition ever due to lack of time caused by presence of puppies and injuries of our other dogs. Alyosha is absolute beginner and this event was his the first competition in his life :) But his co-owner Danka did great job in his training and in preparation of his physical condition and it was worth it because it helped him to go through hard tracks.

We attended many sport events, both coursings and racings, but we haven’t seen such hard track yet. The track was much longer than 1000 m, in very steep slope, except starting and finishing straight. Dogs without physical condition or not motivated sufficiently had no chance! Even great candidates for winning performed poorly.

We could see that tracks were really hard, but the first run showed us that tracks are much harder than they had appeared. Dogs kept losing lure on the third pulley. The second dog very often had no chance to see the lure pushing by faster dog due to potholes and hollows. Awkwardly way of pulling the lure caused many collisions of the dogs in blind terrain.

The rival of our Calinka in the first run was Czech female borzoi of our friend. We were satisfied that the rival was fast female borzoi as our Calinka shows the best performance only with strong rivals. :) Furthermore, these too girls had already met on the tracks, so they knew each other. Calinka is dutiful dog and she runs fast, she copies the track of the lure very often and she cuts the track only very occasionally. But this style of running was disadvantage for her now and she had problem to catch her rival. We didn’t see them for a while, we didn’t see anything through trees and bushes, but later, we were told that there was a collision. But Cali had mobilized her energy, caught the rival on the finishing straight and killed the lure. But girls were very exhausted after finishing their run and they needed rest. Fortunately, there were many registered dogs, so there was enough time to have a rest.

Alyosha is absolute beginner. He is fast and in excellent physical condition, he used to push lure on each pulley (to copy the terrain) on the trainings. But even skillful dogs had lost the lure on this track and Alyosha was no exception. Fortunately, he neither was disoriented as the many dogs were nor discouraged by it. On the contrary, he tried to find the lure and he managed to spot the rival pushing the lure down the hill. Alyosha showed marvelous performance when he darted like bullet and he run in full speed to catch the rival. He succeeded in it and they reach the finish together. Even if the one judge reduced his points, the other two judges gave him nearly the same number of points as to his rival! We were happy that Alyosha got the chance to continue and to run his second run. We already knew that he had no chance to finish on excellent place due to such reduction of his points, but we didn’t expect it in such young age either. But it was great experience for him.

After the rest, we moved to the track number 2. We were told that this track was even harder than track number 1. We were bit worry about performance of our dogs because even skillful whippets lost the lure there. The rival of Calinka was comparatively fast female borzoi so we were curious how exhausted Calinka would run on this hard track with fast rival.

But it seemed that the second track suited borzois more than the first track. The second run of many borzois was better than the first one. But dogs without training had no chance.

Calinka mobilized all energy and darted with excellent speed. She kept her speed and lead during whole run! She pushed the lure and she left the rival behind. The rival knew that she had no strength to catch Calinka, so she cut the track toward the finish, so she had run only the half of the track. Cali didn’t slow down and she pushed the lure. “Relaxed” rival joined Calinka few meters before the finishing straight and she placed herself between Calinka and the lure. Furthermore, she growled on Calinka during whole finishing straight. Exhausted Calinka didn’t feel like competing with rival so she left the lure to her. Disgusted Calinka had no interest on lure even after the taking down muzzle. Cali is sport dog and she doesn’t like the unfair behavior... We were worried about judgment of this finish, so we couldn’t wait to see the total results.

Alyosha got low number of pints so his rival was dog with appropriate number of points. But Alyosha didn’t intend to give up, so he burst like a bullet with full energy and speed. The rival gave up the run right after the starting straight and he came back to his owner. It seemed that Alyosha didn’t notice it because he kept pushing lure as if he was running with pack of dogs. :) He ran up steep slope in great speed and he kept pushing lure very nicely. He didn’t notice that he was already in the finish and he kept running :) So he didn’t do his standard brassock :) But we were happy that he corrected his first run, we could see that he was very satisfied with himself and he played with lure with joy. Surprisingly, he had no problems with getting out of breath. It was excellent performance.

The ceremony was accompanied by terrible weather and rain. We were very curious about the total results and the places of our darlings. We were very surprised because Calinka finished on excellent 6^th place, so she could enjoy her glory on the podium :) Running without training in such hard terrain with fast rivals is not easy as it seems to be and it is no fun! Calinka, darling, we are so proud of you!!!! We can’t forget to mention our very young Alyosha, who showed to have the heart and talent of real borzoi. He finished on beautiful 17^th place from 33 registered male borzois! Furthermore, he received the MOST POINTS in his second run from all competing borzois (females and males) in that day!!! Who knows on which place Alyosha would finish if there were no such significant reduction of points in the first run. Anyway, he showed that he is capable rival and he has a great future for sure. We are very proud of our rising young star Alyosha!
Complete results www.slovakian-borzoi.info

More pic here.

Thanks for nice pictures to Tamas Pagany from Hungary, Alena Portesova (CZ) and Alexandra Mlejnkova (CZ).