Started the weekend with a nice course for the Grade 3 Jumping, a little bit straightforward for my taste so I chose to take Dylan the long way around the pull thru, which gave me a chance to test his weave entry. He flicked out to it beautifully, nailed it, and then I steadied him up way too much for the turn at the end. Oops! That pushed us well out of the placings, unfortunately … or so I thought. We eventually came 16th, despite the super slow last corner!
The Alpha Agility (Combined 1-3) was a weird little course, lots of contacts into nowhere and slightly awkward approaches to the dogwalk and seesaw especially. I completely missed walking the Grade 3 Agility, but luckily it was a nice course, just one tricky bit which people really overhandled, for the most part. However, now would be a moment to mention that the showground is right next to RAF Scampton, where the Red Arrows practice. They practised all day Saturday, and that put paid to our agility runs!
The Red Arrows did not go down well with Dylan. He wasn’t frightened or panicking, otherwise I wouldn’t have attempted to run him, but he wasn’t anywhere near as focussed as he should have been, and was getting hyper-aware of unexpected noises. The Alpha was a complete shambles, we were both all over the place and I think we had 5 or maybe 10 faults? Not sure, but it wasn’t pretty! I could tell from the start of the Grade 3 Agility that Dylan was nowhere near as focussed or as fast as he’s been running recently. I held all his contacts as a result, and we handled the pull thrus without a problem, but it felt super slow. Think we came 21st in that?
Final Grade 3 Jumping was a massive course, huge wide spacings and a run along the top of jump-cloth tunnel-pipe tunnel that I knew was going to cause us problems! Because this class was at the end of the day, the planes had stopped flying just after lunch and we were in the quiet again. We set off comfortably, but I pulled him off the pipe tunnel and we dithered around for 3 hours before I got him back on track. Finished up easily anyway, really lovely extended jumping around the last section which was very nice to see! We came 17th, which was a bit of a surprise as I thought we’d had a very obvious refusal, but apparently the judge didn’t mark it (or the scribe didn’t write it down, because my couple of supporters both thought they’d seen him mark it!)
Sunday dawned … rainy. Lots and lots of rain. Bit of a contrast to Saturday when we all got sunburnt! It stopped raining but stayed overcast until lunchtime, by which time Dyl and I had done all our running. We seem to like running in the rain though, so that’s ok.
First class was the Combined 3-5 Vegas Qualifier, and not at all what I was expecting! It was easier than some of the Grade 3 classes I’ve run recently, and it was definitely easier than the Alpha Qualifier. Again, a very fast, very open course but one I thought Dylan would like, so we gave it our best shot. Our best shot is not very good apparently! Dyl veered off towards the dogwalk and so we made a real hash of the top flick around (6-7), so I held all his contacts again. Going back up to take 6 again, he veered off again for the dogwalk(!), so we lost loads of speed again. I would have marked that as 2 refusals, but apparently the judges were feeling really kind this weekend, because it was recorded as clear. I had a peek at the time anyway; Dyl was 34s-ish, and 20th was 28s-ish, so if we’d been clear (properly clear!) we’d have been top-20. However, how many other people can say that as well? Especially the dark blue merle dog with the most mindblowingly fast running contacts I have ever seen, who got 5f (think on the weaves?). I have no idea who this dog is, but wow, it did the dogwalk in 3 strides and nailed the contacts. Stunning!
Grade 3 Jumping was a perfectly pitched course, nice wide spaces but some areas to handle. I was bouncing after walking this! Dylan had a cracking run but I forgot my steady command at the start and he went very very wide around to 3, which cost us any chance of a placing. Oops!
The other Grade 3 Jumping was a strange little course. It looked really simple on paper, but once everyone walked it there were a few frowns! It was a course that had to be worked all the way through, and finished with a tricky weave entry. Dylan had a fantastic run, super smooth and fast, neat and tidy through all the corners and he nailed the weaves. Couldn’t have asked for better, and we came 6th, which was a pretty fab result in a class of 217!
Grade 3 Agility was another nice course, really straightforward and just a box to work at the top. Dylan set off nicely but we had a real regression and he slammed on at the dogwalk up-plank, I was so disappointed! Held his contacts for the rest of the run and tried to stay philosophical, but it’s so frustrating. Further work required.
Congrats to everyone for their results, but especially to Emma and Bailey for their 2x 2nd’s in Grade 5, and to Alice and Sammy for their 1st in the Grade 2 Jumping, about time!
I was really surprised that Dyl pulled off the placings he did; the classes were huge and placings were seperated by 0.01′s, so I thought we’d have to be running our absolute best even to get near the placings. As it turned out, we were in the top-20 or there abouts with pretty shoddy runs by my standards (especially compared to Hare’n'Hounds at Easter), and with our only good run we were in the top-10. In Jumping! I never thought I’d have a good jumping dog, when did that happen?!
