Tuesday, 29 July 2008

Agility Club show - Newbury showground


It was great to see everyone, as I hadn’t been up country, since September 2007 last year.

Reasons being: The price of fuel, I hadn’t got a job to pay for fuel and entries (Ian wouldn’t have minded, I just felt mean spending all his hard earn’t money, just for my pleasure!)

I had managed to get a holiday job, so I started to enter more shows – yippee.

I left Mindy at home with Ian, for the weekend, especially as I was ring party on Saturday morning.

I found it hard, realising that I had only been out of the big competitions for 18 months and it had changed so much, so many new faces, with flying machine dogs, running contacts and the huge numbers in the classes, the standard was amazing, even in the lower levels.
Take for example the “Champ” class, my last Champ class with Red was Chippenham AC 2 years ago, there was 70 ish in the class and at the weekend there was 112 ish No I didn’t enter the champ class, I felt with Reds health issues it was a waste of time and money, I did love them thou and I miss them, I seem to work better with the pressure!
Red’s highest place in a final champ class was a 3rd, but in those days we walked away with not even a rosette to say we had made it too the final, “sad” hey. But I can remember the run really well and Big Bad Bess won the ticket with Shauna Lyons taking the RCC and Red 3rd. Red was clear in all 3 runs. Bless her.

Back to the show, I ran Red in just two of her 4 classes, one was a pairs, but my pairs partners hurt her self the day before, She was clear in both of her runs, but not fast enough, the 4 th class on the Sunday, I pulled her out off, as I felt it was to hard with too many spreads for an old lady to do! (My choice, if she had been 5 years younger, I would have loved to have had a go at it.)

Buzz, all most got a clear in his jumping class on the Sunday, he just landed so far out towards the wrong end of the tunnel, I did managed to pull him back to the right end, but we got a 5R. His agility rounds, he got his contacts, but came through a gap that wasn’t there! That is Buzz.

The main reason for going to this show, was to see how Harry would fair with the top dogs and I wasn’t disappointed, we had a 4-7 jumping, which we did manage to go clear in, but with two baggy turns and our not so fast weaves, we where just 3 seconds behind the winner, his other clear round was in the small KC Olympia, unfortunately he came down the “A” frame soured over the next two jumps and thought he was finished and headed for the lady sat at the ring side (pole picking up) I was screaming at him like a wild women, but he was convinced he was finished! So winter work, is to get Harry weaving faster and speed up his contacts, I think that is just a confidence thing with the contacts, he did get blown off the dog walk and I think his shoulder gets soar at times, which won’t help for contacts. So I will have to keep the holiday job going to earn some money to pay for the fuel and entries for next year and see if I can go up country more often.

Anyway here is video, kindly videoed by Chris's John, off Harry and Nellie doing their bit!

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