VIGBA’s five-leg stag derby starts Sept. 25

Some of the region’s best game cock breeders converge as the Visayas Game cock Breeders Association (VIGBA) holds a five-leg series dubbed the 2012 Stag Season at the Tejero Cockpit Arena in Cebu and the Sagay City Cockpit Arena in Negros Occidental.

The first leg on Sept. 25 and 26 will be at the Tejero Cockpit, where a P1,000,000 guaranteed prize awaits the winner in this five-stag derby.

VIGBA aims to promote fair play and sportsmanship among game cock breeders in the Visayas with this series of tournaments. It also hopes to give small-time breeders a chance to showcase their best bloodlines in the hopes of winning the coveted “Breeder of the Year” award and the “Stag Idol” award.

“We are here to promote this event because we want to erase the impression of the public that cock fighting is gambling,” said lawyer Louie Arma, president of VIGBA, during the SCOOP Forum at the Baseline Restaurant yesterday. “We want to replace that with the impression that this is a kind of sport, wherein human intervention is needed during the long period of handling the cock in a scientific way.”

The second leg will be held earlier at the Sagay City Cockpit Arena in Negros Occidental this Sept. 20 and 21. This five-stag derby will offer P800,000.

Organizers said they are holding the second and fourth legs first because it is more difficult to organize the Sagay legs since it is out of town.

The third leg will be a four-stag derby back at the Tejero Cockpit on Oct. 18 and 19. Another four-stag derby will be showcased in the fourth leg with at the Sagay Cockpit Arena on Oct. 4 and 5.

The final leg will be held at the Tejero Cockpit Arena on Nov. 8 and 9, where all of the entries of the previous legs will vie for the final tournament that will determine the winner of the “Breeder of the Year” and “Stag Idol” awards.