Behold, the Ferret Derby
Laura Maestrelli on Monday, August 9, 2010 at 9:37AM Let’s say you’re on a month-long road trip around the United Kingdom and you find yourself in a small, unpronounceable town in Wales. And let’s say that while you’re wandering around this vowel-deprived town, you stumble across this poster on the side of the road:
;)
What would you do? If you are wandering Lustin, there’s really no choice to make. You know where you need to be, even if it means modifying your entire travel itinerary for the next few days so that you can be there.
And so, Dustin and I found ourselves wandering around Betws-y-Coed yesterday, trying to kill time until the enigmatic Ferret Derby commenced. What would it be like, we wondered. Would there really be live ferrets? Were we naïve in thinking this would be an actual RACE in which those beady-eyed weasels beloved by hippies around the world would actually compete against each other? We were so excited, but we feared we might be setting ourselves up for disappointment. As the minutes ticked by on Sunday, we found ourselves oscillating between excitement and anxiety. It was like waiting for senior prom, only in this case the prom queen would be a footlong hairy rodent.
We entered the church grounds (this was a charity event after all) around 12:45pm, and with some quick detective work, we spotted the athletes as they were warming up and going through their various pre-race rituals. The fact that they looked moderately terrified by the random children who were poking at them and asking to hold them, and the fact that the race “course” was actually just five long PVC pipes that the ferrets would have to squeeze through blindly, did not take away from the pomp and circumstance of the sporting event about to take place. This looked to be everything we hoped it would be and more.
Rather than try to put into words what followed, we’ll let the photos in our Ferret Derby album tell the story for us. Needless to say, like all great sporting competitions, this one was not without its share of heartbreak. Some ferrets discovered the thrill of victory, but many more of them experienced the agony of defeat. In the end, though, I think we all walked away from the Betws-y-Coed Ferret Derby feeling like we’d been part something pretty special – which is more than I can say for my senior prom.
animals in United Kingdom
Reader Comments (6)
Now that you've mastered the Betws-y-Coed Ferret Derby, you should come to the DeWitt Ox Roast (http://www.dewittoxroast.net/). No, we don't roast a real Ox.
You should add this to your trip statistics:
Weasel Sporting Competitions: 1
Hilarious. I love that you went to this. Thanks for taking pictures.
Greg F
speaking of hippies, i ran into seth and nathan at the phish show on friday. this incident occurred when i randomly walked up to their friend who was in a vintage basketball jersey and asked if he was part of the 1992 dream team that another group of friends came dressed as to the show. imagine my surprise when this was actually not the case and that this larry bird fellow was actually attending with seth and nathan. small world.
p.s. i despise ferrets having been attacked once in 3rd grade.
Ferret Derby. That is awesome. It has been too long since I checked out your blog. Keep sending these tidbits of info from the road that is less traveled. Eric S.
Dirk, thanks for the heads-up about the Ox Roast. You might also be interested in knowing about another derby that our friends Sarah and Ilan once attended (and at which Ilan achieved second place): http://www.visitcripplecreek.com/DonkeyDerbyDays.aspx.
Emily, reading between the lines, I have deduced that you may have had your first encounter with the infamous Mike Cantor. You are a lucky woman.
Greg and Eric, hi. :)
I'll always remember with fondness my pet ferret Roxanne, who, unfortunately, "ran away" when I went away for the summer. Still kind of mad at my parents for that one