The US National:
Congratulations to all the winners!!Full results can be found here: http://usbcha.com/
It was only our 3rd trial this year, and it showed! We were both quite rusty but all 4 dogs ran well in the qualifying and we advanced to the semis (Tod was 2nd , Tweed was 3rd). Tod ran strong there and was DQ’d in the ring. Tweed looked quite good and ran well, but he brought them in a bit too fast on the fetch and a wee misjudge at the shed cost him advancing.
Jim ran very well as did Nell and both made it into the final (Jim was 2nd, Nell was 3rd).
Jim drew first Sunday morning and unfortunately the visibility was quite poor. They did delay the start of the trial a bit but not long enough for me to see the top of the field to control the fetches.We did our best and made all our gates and had quite a good shed going until I made a dreadful math error with my last cut and left myself with 1 plain sheep!! You can hear about the “Hazards of Counting Sheep” in the interview with Farm Diggity video below.
In the end, I was thrilled with Jim. He ran well every round and while we didn’t get the breaks with the conditions in the final, with my blunder in the ring we weren’t going to win it anyway. Nell, on the other hand, ran at the best time of day. The visibility was perfect and the sheep were tremendous at the end of the day, quieter than the morning. She however, ran past the first lot of sheep and wouldn’t stop when I gave her the whistle. She was determined to run to where the 2nd group of sheep were going to be set out?!!
I retired as the run was not going to be competitive. It was a shock as she’s never anything like that before but the one certainty in dog trailing, is that it is full of surprises!