Coming from Behind

Posted on April 03, 2004 by Steve Bowman 

STUTTGART, Ark. _ Scott Greer spent the last three days expecting the worst, and ended up with the best possible results.

Understand Greer is not a pessimist, he's a realist.

Greer and his yellow Labrador, Liza, won the Super Retriever Series presented by Natutral Life Pet Products Saturday at Mack's Prairie Wings.

Along with the title of SRS Champion, Greer also won the title of SportDog Team of the Year, approximately $12,000 in winnings and to top it all off a berth into the ESPN Great Outdoor Games.

And all those great things came in the most unlikely of circumstances.

"I was getting ready to pack my bags and go home about this time yesterday," Greer said.

But the stars, moon and a thousand over types of planets must have lined up perfectly for the handler from Friendship, Tennessee. Despite three sub-par runs in the opening rounds of the event, Greer held on literally by the short hairs of retriever, to make it into the finals and win the event.

"Words can't express what I'm feeling," Greer said. "There was just no way I could really expect this to happen this way."

Greer and Liza started the event as the fourth seed of 75 retriever/handler teams. But after the first day, they barely survived dropping to 21st in the quarterfinal round of 33 dogs. And in the quarterfinal it got worse.

The team was one of the first to survive the test, but had to wait until the second to last dog in the test picked up, scoring a disqualification, and allowing Greer to move into the semifinal round of 12. In that round, again Greer and Liza ran the test first and had to watch as every other handler bested their score, while top handlers like Jerry Day, sunk down the list.

Greer and Liza wound up qualifying in the bottom spot in the finals and again after setting the pace with a score of 76 had to watch as the top dogs for the week slowly fell by the wayside.

'there was never a down time," Greer said. "There was never a moment when I could catch my breath and say "I made it."

Part of his tension centered on the SportDog Team of the Year Race. After the quarterfinal, Greer simply wanted to stay in the race to try and catch Jerry Day, who started the event with a four-point lead. After the semifinals with Day out and Greer in, Greer and Liza still had to finish fourth or higher to win the title.

"After every run I couldn't believe I was still on top," Greer said. "After the first two dogs assured me the SportDog title, then I started worrying about the Great Outdoor Games. It was like it was supposed to happen."

J. Michael Shannahan and Marley followed Greer in second in with 80 points, just one whistle away from toppling Greer. Alex Washburn and Ready were third with 114 points. Armand Fangsrud and Mahfi were fourth with 181 points and Al Davis and Bosco were fifth with 268 points. Chris Akin and Dallas finished sixth with a "Did Not Finish."

After three tests that threw a variety of twists and turns at the retriever/handler teams, the final test seemed fairly tame.

In the opening rounds, the teams were tested with extremely tight lines and a poison bird that forced the more than half of the 75 teams out of the field. That was followed by a test that included a tricky water-angle retrieve that fully tested the dogs' marking abilities. And on Saturday, in the semifinal round, the teams ran the event from the bow of a War Eagle flatbottom boat in a test of mental stability that included an opening flurry of shots (four in all) at a breaking bird that landed within feet of the line.

After all that, the final test looked fairly basic. It started with two long marks, one of which was denoted as a poison bird, followed by a short mark and a blind retrieve.

The handlers were required to work their retrievers to pick up the short mark first, which fell to the right of the course at about 55 yards. The second mark was in line with that fall at about 300 yards.

The next pick up was to be the blind, which set to the right of the course at about 300 yards and forced the handlers to push their dogs by the poison bird within 30 yards and down wind. On the return trip from the blind, an additional diversion bird was thrown in front of the dogs and in line with the poison bird.

'that little bird made all the difference in the test," Greer said.

As an example, Washburn had basically aced the test after virtually lining the long mark and the blind. But after the diversion picking up the diversion bird, she lost Ready in the strong winds and running water of the flat course, racking up almost two-thirds of the teams point on that one retrieve.