Anyway, first up was G7 Power & Speed. A nice warm up before the chum and a chance to train Pie's contacts. Alan Stiff was judging and I think I'm safe in saying that the timing trouble didn't set him up for a good day judging! I nearly sent P over the wrong jump in the speed section as I was rushing off to put in a reverse turn, however we managed to finish 3rd!
Alan then went onto set a fantastic chum course. I loved it! It's very rare that I actually like a course, but it was great. There wasn't only one way to handle it so I was looking forward to seeing the variation. About 30 dogs in, the timing got questioned as dogs were throwing out times that varied from 10 - 25 seconds. Even if these dogs had rockets up their bums, i'm pretty sure it would of been very hard to get round in 10 seconds! The timing equipment had been changed three times in the power and speed before it actually working, so Alan made the sensible decision of restarting the class and do manual timing. The course had to be changed as the dogs who had already run where at an advantage and tweaked enough so that Alan didn't remember his previous course. Having walked this class, I didn't like it as much as the previous one! I had already made my excuse up if I didn't get round it... 'I would have got round the previous one...!'. After being very indecisive as to which side to run the home straight (after walking it both ways) Barry helped me make up my mind. We finished 3rd, therefore qualifying for day two semis. Wahoo! Ian Balchin won, Pete Catt 2nd, can't remember 4th and Elspeth finished 5th. Well done all :) See below for the course plan.
Last run of the day was Sue Culmer's Grade 5-7 jumping, which I had walked! This could of been due to a number of reasons... 1) too busy talking, 2) too busy 'sun bathing' - which then led me to looking like an utter lobster! or 3) because I literally couldn't see, so was sat feeling sorry for myself. I think I have conjunctivitis and my left eye was semi closed (stuck) together for part of the day!! I think it could have been all three though haha! Anyway, after watching a few I was pretty certain that I knew where I was meant to be going and how I was going to handle it. Pie was obviously a good boy, and did everything pretty much perfectly, which is rather strange! He queued on every single turn (I have actually been training turns and wraps properly for once!) and he was just fab. We went into the lead in a time of 27.570. John Cook and beautiful Mac run after me with an absolute stonker which I was sure would beat Pie's time. Mac's time was 27.754! Thank goodness for electronic timing! To be so close to Mac's time after we both had great runs was amazing. Below is the course plan although I have just noticed that I have put 20 the wrong side!
So although I look like a lobster and have conjunctivitis, we have a pretty successful weekend. Roll on Thames.
L x
