This past weekend Graham and I went with the car club to ‘The great Nundle dog race’. This has been an annual event in Nundle for many years now and is a great fundraiser for the school.
Nundle is a small town south east of Tamworth. I’ve not been there before but it’s a pretty little place.
It was a beautiful day too, warm and sunny.
The dog races are a huge event for the town and great fun. I guess that there must have been over three thousand people there and therefore over 1000 dogs!
These aren’t all working dogs but family pets of every breed you can possibly imagine,, and before I go further,,, we didn’t take ours. We’re not sure how WE would have coped with the excitement.
Above: This was a side race – with dogs chasing a bait – a “humanely killed ‘on the road’ fox tail from the previous night”…. hummm
loads of foxes without tails in the Nundle area then… But the best doggies at this (which I don’t have photos of) were the Jack Russell's!
Mad little things!
Anyway, the idea is that the dogs race in small medium & large dog categories. They also have races for age groups for the kids. The main race is for working breeds only and is very serious. The greyhounds and whippets also have their own categories and they run fast and straight.
The idea is that each dog needs two handlers, one holds the dog up one end of the oval while the other person walks backwards down the field trying to keep eye contact with the dog. The winner is the dog that crosses the line first AND finds its handler. So the dogs need to be fast and smart!...............
Well the result is chaos, dogs go everywhere! My description of it doesn'tdo it justice.
Then there is of course the fancy dress parade, what can I say?
Whoever thought of this as a fundraiser was a genius – much more fun than a school fete.
Below is the ABC local news story on the event.
Fierce competition as Nundle goes to the dogs
ABC Local news By Lisa Herbert
Once a year the northern New South Wales town of Nundle goes to the dogs.
Yesterday thousands of people and their pooches made their way to the small town for the local primary school's major fundraiser.
The day is packed full of doggy activities and culminates with the big one - the prestigious Great Nundle Dog Race, a 100 metre sprint for working dogs.
The day's events started with dog jump which was won by a bull mastiff cross called Shank. He scaled 2.08 metres without too much trouble. Shank's owner, Mark McGuire, wasn't expecting too much. "He surprised me. I didn't even think he'd even make the first jump and he ended up winning it!"
A red cattle dog called Red, owned by Stan Smith of Boggabri, won the day's feature event - the Great Nundle Dog race. Shep from Tamworth ran second. Jin of Merriwa came in third .Mr Smith says his best friend didn't do a lot of training for the event. "She gets walked every day. This is just a fun thing."
The event raised more than $12,000 for the local school. Principal Ian Worley says it's a lot of money for a school of 60 children. "It's a major fundraiser for us but it also brings people into the town.
"It puts technology into the classroom. A lot of it goes towards assisting students to go on excursions." Principal Worley says some people take the dog races very seriously. “They get pretty competitive. People aren't allowed any aids that might help attract the dog to them but we had to confiscate a few this year. "We had people trying to sneak snacks in or the dog's favourite rubber ball!"
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