You can imagine our surprise when we arrived at the venue at 6.30am only to find the Arena full of extremely large horse jumps!! The venue was double booked :-(
Thankfully Trent Valley has a very large outdoor menage that we were able to use. Paul and the venue owner had to quickly decide on how we could safely keep the Dogs and Horses apart whilst allowing enough room for each. So parking was segregated and we started work on setting up the rings under the flood lights. The good news was that rings were so much bigger then inside so we were able to construct the courses very easily!
As the competitors started to arrive they must have been extremely worried that they hadn't brought enough clothes or that it would rain on us (we didn't even have any tents and Sue and Hazel had to use a stable for their office!!) but they all entered into the spirit of it and I didn't hear a single moan:-)
The Agility Gods must have been smiling on us as we had a great day. It only drizzled fleetingly in the afternoon, we finished whilst it was still light and I think it was warmer outside then it was in. The only, very minor, annoyances were that you couldn't watch the show whilst eating and we couldn't use the tanoy. Apart from that I actually preferred to be outside.
It was lovely that there were friends at the show I hadn't seen in a while, Tina and Katie, but a bit of a shame that I didn't have much time to spend with them.
He loved every minute of the show. Having not done any Agility since Decembers show he couldn't contain his excitement and I couldn't have slowed him down if I'd tried!!
He was clear in all of his 4 classes and 1st in every one:-)
Elementary Agility - Judge:- Pat Bishop - No weaves or See-saw on this course. Good wait and stop on Dog Walk. Although he stopped on the A-Frame he self released which left me momentarily indecisive and resulted in the next pole coming down (I really should have put him back on) - 8th place.
Elementary Snakes and Ladders - Judge:- Pen Sensky - Least said about this one the better but Reno did a good A-Frame!!
Elementary TFO Jumping - Judge:- Ann Miller - This was the only course of the day that had weaves in and I really wanted to give them a go. Unfortunately I was late commanding the turn before the weaves resulting in what would have been an E on a normal course so we were out - 5th place.
Elementary Jumping - Judge:- Richard Ludlow - Luckily our ring had finished and packed up whilst this class was still running so I had time to get Reno and warm him up with a good game of fetch and tuggy before we ran. The course was huge (I'd already ran it with Kiros in Veterans) and I'd just watched Paul and Tiber do an amazing run putting them into the lead. Could I get Reno around it in a good time?..........................The answer is yes!!!!!! We had a couple of hairy moments but Reno just pipped Tiber's time finishing 1st!!! What a good boy.
I think Reno must have liked running outdoors in Jan because this was definitely his best performance to date:-)
Once more I'm finishing the post with a well done to Paul and Tiber for not only coming 2nd in the Jumping but the TFO as well.
