Why change rules for dog counts. The east coast cant help it if there is more dogs here sounds like the east coast maybe getting penalized for having more hunters.

The Leaderboard attracts much attention as being the best metric out there for recognizing the best hounds and hunters each year, and I commend the leaderboard committee for responding to the request to allow certain hunts to be able to transition from a grade 3 to a grade 2 hunt.

If the goal of the leaderboard committee is to make it equally attainable for hunts across the country to be able to parti****te as a proposed "franchise" hunt, then establishing regions may have been necessary. However, the proposed criteria, as it is now, will clearly have a disparate impact on the hounds and hunters in region 1 trying to compete for the top of the leaderboard. This, in addition to the much greater monetary commitment for hunts in region 1 to parti****te as a franchise hunt, is hardly fair or just.

I challenge the leaderboard committee to amend their proposal for establishing franchise hunts so that everyone competing, regardless of geographical location, for the leaderboard is on a level playing field.