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I don't agree, I usually go on Fri and campout for the weekend along with a group of about 20, we bring and enter alot of dogs. If there isn't a division for the speeds of different hounds, then by all means, go drop your cash on 1 race and watch a field trial dominated by greyhounds. It doesn't make a fun weekend and doesn't make it more enjoyable to spend your hard earned $ that is already a bit harder to come by.

OK,
I am going to try to address some of your concerns about our format change of running our field trials. First let me tell you the same number of dogs are making the finals as in the past, for instance this last weekend we had 149 dogs in entries and re-entries, there were 51 dogs who made the finals making a total of Three 13 dog finals and one 12 dog final. These numbers are consistant with field trail finals with this number of entries we have ran in the past.

We have made the change to our format, and tried it at both pot races and the field trial just last weekend and I did not recieve or hear of any complaints, the race ran smooth, timely and everyone had a great time.
We did have questions but not one person was against the format change, all I heard was how good the races went and how much every liked our changes.
If you look back at Elk Creek last year we ran 4 hours of qualifiers on Friday and another 5 hrs on Saturday, thats 9 hrs of races that nobody watched,. Remember the qualifiers were not run for any money, it was just the clubs way of placing your dogs in a division. We have run this way for years and have found that qualifying does not work... In fact a Greyhound won the FOURTH DIVISION FINAL 1st and 1st this past year. And this was not the only year this has happened.. How many of you have had your best dog end up in 4th division at one field trial and the next race 2nd? History has shown us that the qualifiers were a waste of valuable time. We found that you were only qualifing against the 8 to 10 dogs in your qualifier, not the whole field. It still just came down to the luck of the draw as to what dogs you qualified against. How many of you have had your dogs not even qualify and not get to run in the field trial itself?
This new format allows us to get to the field trial races quicker and hopefully auction all races so you can bet on your dogs, and allow us to have more events... Like two bear races which is already being discussed. Others will be discussed at the race to be added time and interest permitting. Please remember we had 394 dogs to run last year so our time is stretched to the limit. This is why we needed to make a change.

We are still going to have the re-entries on Sunday morning like we always have.

For those of you who don't know we ran the last race keeping the heats at 8-9 dogs so that more dogs got into the money and made it into the finals, Elk Creek heats will be larger due to the number of entries, but this was true last year also, depending on the number of dogs the club is considering adding another final making 5 instead of the 4, we believe this will help keep the number of dogs down.
Hopefully that will solve having to run semi finals.
I understand your concerns about running against the Greyhounds, this has been a thorn in my side for a number of years, while I only run hounds, I have nothing against the Greyhounds, just as long as they are not running against my hounds, HOWEVER I am only one person and have one vote. If people are wanting to become involved in our club and have a voice, please feel free to join our club, become a voting member and help with the field trails.

Remember we put these on for FUN, to earn money for the Political victory fund, we also support several other organizations such as; California Houndsmen for Conservation, Sportsman Alliance, amoung others.

I really look forward to seeing everyone and hope you all can make it and we can all have fun and earn money to keep up the fight for our hunting rights, for me this is what it's all about!!!

Dale Tobiassen
President North Central California Houndsmen

By doing random draw for the heats it seems that all the normal 1st division dogs will be split up into just about all the finals instead of in there own class. So seems like its all luck yes I agree but way better with qualifiers that prevents all the first division dogs from winning all the finals. The greyhound problem can be fixed easy with there own class.... An like u said Dale T its all about making money an fun I agree but I don't think your gonna get the entries this way wich means less dog to auction. I would be for this in one condition if it allowed us to do more events.... For people like myself an the ten or so families that come from wa. It ain't worth the time an money to run one time.... I just like supporting the sport however I go to every event in wa

An I don't recall ever seeing anybody from California there supporting us. I do belong to all your clubs an donate when I can... An last year at elk creek I asked time an time again if u needed any help with judging an was told thanks but we got them...

dogman wrote:I JUST TOLD MY GROUP ABOUT THIS THEY SAID THE SAME MINE AS WELL STAY HOME... WE COME ALL THE FROM WA. AN TO PAY 10 OR 20 BUCKS AN HAVE A DOG ONLY RUN ONE TIME. IF U WANNA CHANGE SOMETHING MAKE 2BEAR RACES AN A CLASS FOR THE GREYHOUNDS. AGAIN JUST MY 2CENTS......

+1

Sorry to here that you guys from Washington won't be coming down, but based on the response we had at our Field Trial last weekend I don't see that the format change will hurt our attendence, we will see. We have thought long and hard about these changes and have polled the people that have attended our races for the last 30 years without a single person objecting to the changes, bottom line in the end we will not be able to make every body happy regaurdless of what we do!

Dale

Ya I no what u mean not everybody will be happy. But who was complaining about the old way? Don't fix something unless its broke.... This starting to sound like the old an wise an the young an dumb!!!! Just rember Boise Idaho has a big meet at this same time an they Dont allow greyhounds!!!! I think there turnout gonna be big one this year with these liberal changes coming to elk creek...

We've had complaints for years about the amount of time and trouble we have gone though to run with the qualifyers ever since this club started to run them over 10 years ago when the club went from the As, Bs, and Cs to the qualifying race's and finally enough people thought about it and realized that it's " luck of the draw" as to what dog got in your qualifyer race of 8-10 dogs and seeing how from one race to the next how "all" dogs would be in one division one race then a diffrent division the next and it always came down to "luck of the draw".
This change to run this way is not just something that we just changed for change but some thing we have worked on and talk to a lot of the long time houndsmen who have been running dogs for a lot of years and have put on there own races and were there last weekend, saw how we drew the dogs out, asked questions and gave there advise, if you can't see that the qualifyers were not working the way that they were I don't know what more I can tell you, my experence only go's back about 25 years in running dogs in the field trials and running field trials but the "old timers" we talked to before we made these changes have been running field trials since the 1950 when it was all grey hounds and no hunting dogs when they were Greens, Jrs and Srs.

Bottom line if you don't like the way we run them, stay home and put on your own race the way you like to.

Dale

Dale T wrote:We've had complaints for years about the amount of time and trouble we have gone though to run with the qualifyers ever since this club started to run them over 10 years ago when the club went from the As, Bs, and Cs to the qualifying race's and finally enough people thought about it and realized that it's " luck of the draw" as to what dog got in your qualifyer race of 8-10 dogs and seeing how from one race to the next how "all" dogs would be in one division one race then a diffrent division the next and it always came down to "luck of the draw".
This change to run this way is not just something that we just changed for change but some thing we have worked on and talk to a lot of the long time houndsmen who have been running dogs for a lot of years and have put on there own races and were there last weekend, saw how we drew the dogs out, asked questions and gave there advise, if you can't see that the qualifyers were not working the way that they were I don't know what more I can tell you, my experence only go's back about 25 years in running dogs in the field trials and running field trials but the "old timers" we talked to before we made these changes have been running field trials since the 1950 when it was all grey hounds and no hunting dogs when they were Greens, Jrs and Srs.

Bottom line if you don't like the way we run them, stay home and put on your own race the way you like to.

Dale

Don,t worry there will be a lot of hunters that will spend their cash having fun. Thanks

Never seen so many people hate something when they haven't even been to the new format trials. Can't wait for elk creek!

And these few that have a problem with the new format are the only complaints that we have had after 2 pot races and a field trial with 149 dogs entered.

The new format did work very well at the spenceville feild trial. I would at least sugest that every one that was planning on going this year still go to at least see how they like it. If you really think about it, who goes to a feild trial and actually plans on making money. Other than a person or to I don't think anyone does. You go to have fun and hangout with other houndsmen that you dont see very often. And like Dale said there has always been grey hounds in different divisions, so that shouldn't be a reason to stop anyone.

Ross

This years flyer reads:


ELK CREEK FIELD TRIAL MARCH 19, 20
Sponsored by :NORTH CENTRAL CALIFORNIA HOUNDDMEN ASSOCIATION & MEMBERS AT WHITNEY RANCH ( RAIN OR SHINE)
$2000.00 FINAL (SUNDAY) OPEN TO ALL DOGS
ENTRIES ARE $10.00 PER DOG
ENTRIES START AT NOON ON FRIDAY AND WILL CLOSE AT 9:00AM SATURDAY
RE-ENTRIES ON SUNDAY CLOSE AT 9:00AM
THERE WILL BE NO QUALIFYING TRACK THIS YEAR
ALL DOGS WILL BE DRAWN AND PLACED IN HEATS, THE WINNERS OF THESE HEATS WILL MOVE ON TO THE FINALS ALL DOGS IN THE FINALS WILL BE DRAWN
Each year North Central's events are getting bigger and bigger! The club has made these changes with the input from those who attended our two races at Spencville. This will cut down time drastically. Thank you for your support!

BEAR RACE SAT. EVE. $20.00 PER DOG
Other events if time permits
Drawing on Sunday, All proceeds go to S.P.V.F.
$25.00 Hi-bid each day, Heat money paid in semis
camping and dog water available
Concession by Elk Creek Vol. Fire Dept.
Fishing with permit only/get at the booth
ABSOLUTELY NO ATV'S ON THE GROUNDS!!!
LAND OWNER AND CLUB NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY LOSS OR DAMAGES
Take I-5 to 162 West out of Willows, go to Elk Creek and follow the signs
For more info contact Field Marshals: Dale Tobiassen 530 273 1807, Rachael Kidd
530 692 9155, Lori Jacobs 530 692 9515

U say this new format helps save time. Yet you ain't planning on or what? In the ad it says IF time permits..... An there is no other change to anything else?

I'm not sure what your question is,
But if your asking about other events if time permits we are talking about maybe running another bear race on Fri. afternoon, possilby a puppy race and a treeing contest on Saturday "TIME PERMITING" we have no idea how many dogs we will have entered but based on our last two Field Trials we may have over 400 dogs to run!
Dale