I always like to end my blogs on a positive note, but that just wasn't how the weekend panned out, so feel free to stop reading after Saturday if you don't want to join my self loathing pity party ; )
Friday:
So my competitive weekend actually started on Friday for a change, I went to help set up some tents at the SWAT show and Jo talked me into bringing my dogs along for the Dairin's Challenge qualifier. This was an event where you could have as many goes at the course as you liked at the fastest 20 Clears would take place in the Final Saturday night - The Catch - The course was a 'Dairin special', hard to remember and difficult to run, expect the unexpected! Jo had talked me into bringing my guys because the course had been running for 2 hours and only 3 dogs had gone Clear! So I took in Kif first, he was my best chance of getting round a course like this, but he back jumped number 2 in his first go, the rest he did clear and to be honest, made the course flow and feel nice. I thought I'd give him a rest and let Hex have a blast before getting him out to try again. Hex's run was nowhere near as clean as Kif's BUT to my surprise sheonly had 5 faults - just one pole! I was in shock, I now had 2 dogs that could potentially do a clear, but I was advised that I could only take one dog through - so which one to choose? Well rumour had it that the final would be a bit more of a blast (turns out that rumour was started by Dairin himself - sneeky!), so I went for Hex, who ended up being the 5th dog to go clear, she qualified 5th overall - her first final! And to be surrounded by Grade 6-7 dogs, I felt so proud!
Saturday
I gave Mum Kif for the weekend because she was without Stitch so I only had Hex to run and we had a day of 5 faults, having said that her corners and her response and contacts were so quick and accurate, I couldn't have been happier with her and was excited about her first final in the evening... until I walked the course and realised it was not the rumoured blast. I walked the course over and over and all I could think was 'why, o why didn't I have a second go at the qualifier and put Kif through?!' I don't think I walked the course once without saying 'I want Kif' and I walked that course ALOT! But I shouldn't have doubted the Red Baby, I panicked and pushed her out of the weaves early and over Jump 3 before correcting the weave, but then I took a deep breath, took her back to the end of the weaves and ran the course from there until the end as if nothing had gone wrong and she did that CLEAR, not just clear, but clean, tight, accurate, I left the ring buzzing with what we had acheived and thinking 'if we can do that then we can do anything we put our minds too'.
Sunday
O Sunday, why did you have to go and ruin that Saturday buzz? He had some results Sunday, but Hex was nowhere near as responsive as she had been the day before. She wasn't listening, she was wide and even turned the wrong way after one jump - so frustrating. I really thought that one of my Clears would be out of the places but I had actually gone into the lead!... only to be beaten by Mum & Kif! Yes you read that right, I'd talked Mum into running Kif that day and she went and beat me and with Kif of all dogs, I really underestimated that dog, what a star! - He provided some rather good banter material that day turning Mum into 'Skinner Winner' and me into 'Skinner first loser' - Thanks Dairin!
Monday
With the SWAT show behind us and rather knackered Jo and I headed off to Birmingham for Packington Show to be abused by the weather and test our love for the sport.
I don't know what was up with me, I released Hex from her dogwalk WAY to early in the Olympia qualifiers - the pressure just got to me, I pulled Kif off a jump too early in his jumping and I took my eyes off Hex in her jumping - timing just seemed to be a issue for me which was a pain because my dogs were giving it their all. I really let them down and would have been in tears if it hadn't been for Jo helping me focus on the positives of each run (which was basically everything apart from the one mistake I made in each).
We survived the whole day, unlike a huge number of the day runners who had left by lunch and Jo went home with a 5th in the C1-7 H/Skelter with Meddler against some of the best mediums in the country!.... I went home with a new Keyring (well I couldn't go home empty handed!)
Trying to go back to the positive, I leave you our best acheivements from the weekend; The Dairin's Challenge courses (as best as my memory serves me) and of course RESULTS:
Results:
Gail & Kif - 1st, G5 Jumping
Hex - 2nd G5 Jumping
Hex - 10th, C1-7 Jumping
Hex - Qualifying 5th Overall for Dairin's Challenge
Sprite - 2 x Clears, Anysize Jumping
Sarah & Ru - Clear, C1-7 Jumping
Alex & Sonny - Clear, C1-7 Jumping
Anne & Chas - 3rd, C1-4 Agility
I must also say a special thank you to Helen & Anthony who weren't even running dogs on Sunday but were there all day to help run our ring and learnt lots of jobs, we had a couple of no-show helpers and without Helen & Anthony's help, running Ring 2 would have been nearly impossible. Thank you!
No comments:
Post a Comment