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Buda wiener dog racesPosted April 30, 2006, 10:30 p.m.
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Hays Highway Editor
BUDA – They sprint after rubber balls to build speed, they swim to build muscle and stamina, they take in the most best nutrition, then they come to Buda seeking glory. It seems the competitive dachshund will stop short of nothing to win the wiener dog races at the Buda Country Fair.
But then they come to Copper, the kind of singular athlete who raises the definitive questions in sports. Is Copper the Babe Ruth of wiener dog racing, or is Babe Ruth the Copper of baseball? Is Copper the Michael Jordan of wiener dog racing, or is Jordan the Copper of basketball?
How does one compare great athletes across sports and eras? These are questions for sporting historians, albeit of a peculiar bent.
But it can't be questioned that Copper is the champion of the dachshund world after his fourth consecutive Buda title Sunday afternoon at City Park, his fifth in his seven-year life. Copper easily defeated all the comers, whether they were local dogs trying to rise or national contenders trying to make their mark in the sport. They all came to try Copper this weekend. They all failed.
Once the top six out of more than 500 dogs lined up for the final, the only remaining question would be Copper's margin of victory. Mo, the 2002 champion, a consistent contender who won the last time Copper didn't, was nowhere to be found. Simba, the great legend from the Houston area, has retired.
The upstarts were no match. Richie, last year's runner-up from Hutto, fared no better this time against the mighty Copper, but repeated his second-place finish. A new contender, Sammy, came all the way from Orlando, FL, undefeated in 19 events, favored by some of the handicappers.
"We were a little bit concerned," Brian Shocklee of Austin, Copper's owner, manager and trainer, "We heard a lot about (Sammy). We saw some of his races. He ran pretty good."
But Copper blew easily past Sammy in their semifinal heat, setting up the championship race more as a coronation than a competition.
"We were confident going into the final," Shocklee said.
So, Copper won the final heat without question Sunday afternoon. And all that remains to be learned is the sum of the great one's racing legacy, the totality of his achievements, which continue unabated.
"I don't see too much sign of him slowing down," Shocklee said. "We're planning on coming back next year. As long as he keeps running, we will."
The wiener dog races continued their remarkable growth, but not to the extent that the Buda Lions Club couldn't maintain a smooth, trouble-free event. As always, the growing number of entrants right up to the first race stunned event volunteers and, as always, the volunteers coordinated the two-day event into a smashing success.
Nancy Hendricks of the Buda Lions Club said the crowd Saturday reached up to 12,000 people. The throng diminished considerably Sunday, after more than two-thirds of the dogs were eliminated in preliminary heats. The only remaining dogs by mid-afternoon Sunday were the top two finishers from each of 86 preliminary heats – 61 run throughout Saturday and another 25 early Sunday. Each preliminary heat ran six or seven dogs.
By late Sunday afternoon, the event wound down to 23 elimination heats and two more rounds of heats before the final. To win the race and its $500 first prize, Copper needed to survive five rounds of heats.
Finally, Copper beat out Richie and Tyson, a Kyle native, the first Northern Hays County dog to advance so far since the wiener dog races became a national event five years ago. Tyson's owner, David Cardiel, lives in Austin, where he may be plotting a more extensive racing career for his two-year-old. Tyson competed in Buda as a pup last year and showed well, but didn't advance to the final heat. This time, a more mature Tyson finished third, leaving the nationally renowned Sammy out of the money.
"We're looking to (race more) now, maybe," Cardiel said. "We thought we'd try this one. We noticed how fast he was. He sprints, he jogs, he swims. He swims with my brother-in-law and sister's Labradors, so that's impressive for a little dog."
Someday, perhaps, Copper will step aside like Simba, the Houston immortal owned by Shocklee's brother, David Shocklee. At ten years old, Simba's racing days are finished. And Copper is catching up in years to the extent that he has dropped his Houston racing dates to run only in Buda every year.
Someday, perhaps, a new wiener dog champion will emerge in Buda. However, as Copper continues his dachshund dominance, that new champion may be years into the future.
