Saturday saw the first of a series of trail trails at Kirkbride/Oulton which are promoted by Colin Satterthwaite.
Like James McClelland in the Ennerdale area, Colin co-ordinates the trails and works with the local farming community as well as Natural England.
Natural England now own and lease a large proportion of land in the Solway area which include Bowness Common, Glasson Moss and Whedholme Flow.
Colin has to work with Natural England as there are particular times when it is not possible to race the hounds over the land.
There are a range of breeding birds found on the reserve and when they start to nest the trails have to stop so its key that Colin and his team work together with the organisation to keep everything right.
Similar to James in the west, money raised from the trails held in this area is donated back to local causes.
Kirkbride offers a different type of running which is a mixture of open fields and dykes as well as wet open moss land. Some dogs like it, some don’t.
The first trail to get underway on Saturday was the pups with a good slip of 17 hounds.
As the hounds came back into sight alongside the wood they get on to a track which makes it difficult to pass and there were five hounds clear with the local hounds having the advantage.
It was Colin’s family hounds who finished first and second with Thorn Soul for Martin, Molly, Teddy Burrow and Sarah Jackson in first place and in second place Thorn Sass for Martin, Molly and Teddy Burrow, Ian Freyne, Ger and Jennifer Kenneally.
Finishing in third place was Thorn Heart for Colin Satterthwaite.
Next up were the senior hounds again with a good slip of 24 and this time as they showed alongside the wood it was Laura Steele, Andrew Bulman and Ian Rumney’s Embrace who was first onto the track and he finished well to win nicely from Thorn Gift and Eden Rayna.
Last to slip was the All-In race with 19 runners and it was another of the local hounds that came through to win as Colin’s Thorn Pop narrowly beat Alan Blacklock’s Busy Again as they were neck-and-neck coming up the finish.
March 9 – Kirkbride Airfield
- Pups – 1. Thorn Soul; 2. Thorn Sass; 3. Thorn Heart. 17 ran, time 13.40.
- Hounds – 1. Embrace; 2. Thorn Gift; 3. Eden Rayna. 24 ran, time 12.30.
- All-In – 1. Thorn Pop; 2. Busy Again; 3. Dundee. 19 ran, time 13.40.
