The Super Retriever Series event in Stuttgart, Ark., runs March 13-16 .

Guessing is in the nature of sport.

To study the competitors in an event and guess who will fare the best is almost as much fun as watching the game. It is after all a guess. If that weren't the case, what would be the point of having a competition?

Then again, a competition wouldn't be any fun if there weren't a designated favorite and even more so if there isn't the designated underdog.

With that in mind, the Super Retriever Series event scheduled for March 13-16 in Stuttgart, Ark., has been seeded. The event is the second of three retriever trials that doubles as a qualifier for the ESPN Great Outdoor Games.

Included in the field is Jerry Day, the Great Outdoor Games 2001 gold medalist in Retriever Trials and the 2002 silver medalist in the event. Day won those medals with Super Sue; this year he will be trying to qualify Sue's daughter, Nike.

How will Day and Nike fare?

Like the NCAA basketball road to the Final Four, pundits of this sport have outlined which retriever/handler teams they think will fare the best, and, in so doing, have picked the designated underdogs (pardon the pun).

However, this isn't a NCAA tournament bracket, whereupon you can study depth charts, scoring percentages, rebounds and any number of other statistics to draw a reasonable conclusion. This is a dog competition, where the lines of distinction aren't nearly as evident, especially to the casual observer.

In an event like the Super Retriever Series, handler experience is huge. The addition of cameras, crowds and a very small window for mistakes sets apart the pressure of this event.

Lyles Rudder, chief judge of the Super Retriever Series, was asked to clear up those lines a bit:

"The seeds are based pretty loosely on the fact that we know a lot about most of these dogs," Rudder said. "I can't say it is totally complete. But, because we don't know a lot about each dog, it's the best we can do.

"Knowing how the Super Retriever Series is run and what it takes to excel, I know that with just three or four years of handling experience under your belt, you are more than likely going to be in a tough position before you get through this thing. Because of that we based a lot of the seeds on the handler and his past success and experience."

In an event like the Super Retriever Series, handler experience is huge. This isn't your normal field trial. The addition of cameras, crowds and a very small window for mistakes sets apart the pressure of this event.

Judges like Rudder, who has officiated every Super Retriever Series event, realize quickly that experience is the single most important factor in a trial like this.

As a case in point, Rudder points to the past Great Outdoor Games gold medalists. Each of those champions had been handling retrievers seriously for more than 20 years.

"To keep your dogs out of trouble in this event, it takes experience," Rudder said. "Every one of the top dogs can go long; they can handle short stuff. But, the single factor that they all have is their handlers are good, very good."

So what makes a handler so good?

"The experienced handler is looking and watching and studying the test dog, and the dogs that run before him," Justin Tackett, organizer of the Super Retriever Series, said. "He is looking for dead spots on each line, to each mark and to each blind. Those are places where dogs cannot hear whistles, or places dogs are picking up scent that is throwing them off line."

Armed with that knowledge, he formulates a game plan to attack the course, utilizing his and the retriever's strengths to get the most out of his run. But that won't be all he's looking for.

"He's looking to see where to set his dog up behind the line," Tackett said. "He's thinking where does he need to put his dog in position to see each mark all the way down from the winger to the ground.

"And he's looking to balance all that between where he will receive the bird after the retrieve, and be ready for the re-cast on the next mark."

The hoped-for end result will be that the retriever showed the judges how well it has been trained. The judges want to see handlers take a tough line to a retrieve as opposed to an easy line. They want to see a dog that will break cover, hit the water at an angle, and exit at an angle.

All of those little intricacies of moving a retriever through a field trial course come only with experience. But that doesn't mean a new kid on the block can't knock off one of the old hands. The best-case scenario is from the 2002 Super Retriever Series at Stuttgart.

Without a single title to his credit,Mark Miles, a young handler without that "20 years of experience" under his belt, with Woody, a 1½-year-old black Labrador, smoked the field and went on to the Great Outdoor Games, surprising many of the hardened veterans.

After all, guessing is in the nature of sport. But so is the fact that even underdogs can have their day.