The night race was first and we were off like a rocket in freezing conditions. We kept up a good pace, executing the turns well and flying up and down the hills until Shanta took a left turn too sharply and became tangled in the rig.    We stopped for about half a minute to sort this out and were then heading towards the finish line where the trail has been resurfaced in places.  The team slowed down with every section of new surface and picked up speed with the old surface, but we were now within sight of the finish line  and for the last half mile we sped along.

Sunday morning’s race was over the same trail but in daylight and again we flew off the start line.  After the first right hand turn Shanta again slowed her pace and every so often picked it up again.   It becomes obvious that she didn’t like the resurfaced patches of the trail so we ran at her pace. As we near the finish line Rusky and Shanta decided they wanted to go and say hello to a marshall but with a quick word from me we carried on and crossed the finish line.  Upon inspection of the trail the newly surfaced area has been covered with  the size of stones you would find on a railway line.  We finished in sixth place in each race (well done the team) and were still the fastest all rescue four dog team.

Our next race is on the 29 January at Longmoor, over a six mile trail.