When Phoebe, a black-headed tricolor beauty from Ann Arbor, advances to the starting line at the Saline Celtic Festival, it wonít be her first run. But while the five-year-old AKC-registered corgi has competed twice before, her owner, Laurel Park, jokes: “We’re not looking to show up on ESPN anytime soon.”
Phoebe is one of 100 Welsh corgis registered to race in a new event for the festival, which moves this year from Saline’s Mill Pond Park to the Washtenaw Farm Council Grounds. The festival is July 7 and 8, with a sneak preview on July 6 of an all-day mounted law-enforcement competition (see Events for details).
The corgis will run multiple 100-foot heats starting at 2 p.m. Saturday, with the top three finishers returning to compete for gold, silver, and bronze medals. “They’re herding dogs, so they love to run,” Park says.
The race is one of a slew of new events at this year’s Celtic Festival, which started in 1996.
“The festival outgrew Mill Pond Park,” says Friends of the Festival treasurer Terri Hetzel Murphy. “We could not grow, and without growth we were barely hanging on financially.”
Most of the funds for this year’s $75,000 festival budget will be raised through entry fees and the beer tent. In addition, sponsors have contributed $15,000 in cash and in-kind donations. Any profit will go into next year’s festival.
The fairgrounds are ideal for the festival, Murphy says, because their ample electricity and water allow easier setups for attractions such as blacksmiths and glassblowers. Plus, there are twenty acres of free parking.
A robust social-media campaign has attracted an additional 3,000 followers to the festival’s Facebook page over the last four months, she says, and advance ticket sales are up 100 percent over previous years. Murphy predicts attendance will top last year’s record crowd of 4,300.
Millie, the Mill Pond Monster, who has entertained festivalgoers since 2003, won’t be left behind.
“She is going to welcome everyone at the gate,” Murphy says.
