Well, Day 1 starts with warm and clear weather. As we did in Lexington, we walked courses all morning and then ran the courses. Start of each class was staggered so you had plenty of time to walk.

First class was Time Gamble. This is a nice warm-up class, just a short course. Guess your time, and whoever is closest wins (over or under time). TONS of folks were less than a second off their time. Taz was even faster than I expected, and did not stay on the contacts like I had hoped, although he did get them cleanly. I could have eaten up time by stopping on the course, but what fun is that?! We ended up 5 seconds under the time I guessed (31.5 sec).

Next was Steeplechase. We had a challenging course with a number of good off-course possibilities, particularly as the dog approached the Aframe for the second time, with the tunnel looming in front of them. A tough push out to the weaves, and a call-off the tire near the end made for a course that knocked a lot of handlers out. Still, you could definitely get some good speed going, and needed it to make the finals.

In the 16" class, Erin Shaeffer and Jag had a superb run, wiping out the rest of the class with a 34 second class. WIth 37 seconds behind her were Shimmer and Morgan (all shelties). Taz did great for me, although is taking a little long to get down into the contact on the Aframe, not good when you have two of them to do on a speedy course!

Then I forgot to race ahead of him on the weaves like I planned, and ended up way of of place to do the final line of jumps. Amazingly, he did them cleanly even though we were zig-zagging madly. We ended in 10th place, good enough to make the finals.

Well, appears no one else will be posting results, so I will try to get as many as I can when I am not running (and am not too tired to care). I'm not going to bother with times, will just give placements in each class. So, here are the placements so far in Steeplechase Round 1:

12" Class:
1 - Junior (Papillon)
2 - Sophie (All American)
3 - April (Toy Poodle)
4 - Twister (JRT)
5 - Sam (PWC)
6 - Flint (PWC)
7 - Zoe (JRT)
8 - Bear (Toy Poodle)

16" Class
1 - Jag (Sheltie)
2 - Shimmer (Sheltie)
3 - Heather (Sheltie)
4 - Banchor (Sheltie)
5 - Scamp (Tibetan Terrier)
6 - Riley (All Aemrican)
7 - Casey (Sheltie)
8 - Chelsea (JRT)
9 - Duncan (Sheltie)
10 - Taz (Sheltie)
11 - Shooter (Border Terrier)
12 - Terminator (Mini Schnauzer)

22" Class
1 - Riot (BC)
2 - Scout (BC)
3 - Cap (BC)
4 - Stoni (BC)
5 - Awesome (BC)
6 - Blu (Aussie)
7 - Wicked (BC)
8 - Asti (BC)
9 - Static (BC)
10 - Flurry (BC)
11 - Echo (BC)
12 - Maggie (BC)
13 - Focus (Aussie)
14 - Zoe (BC)
15 - Gemma (BC)
16 - Nitro (BC)

26" Class
1 - Recce (BC)
2 - Jessie (BC)
3 - Whist (BC)
4 - Suede (BC)
5 - Lilly (Malinois)
6 - Flash (All American)
7 - Timeflies (BC)
8 - Suni (Aussie)
9 - Tasha (All American)
10 - Kallie (BC)
11 - Lazer (BC)
12 - Duffy (BC)
13 - Jazz (BC)
14 - Jordan (Belg. Sheepdog)
15 - Ranger (BC)

Our next class was Snooker Scramble. For those not familiar with Snooker, in this game you have a opening sequence where you have 3 jumps, you do each and then your choice of numbered obstacles, you earn the point value of the number on the obstacle, and then you do a closing with the numbered obstacles in sequence. Depending on what goes wrong, the handler may have to change their strategy on the fly. Snooker Scramble is a new game that combines two handlers running a Snooker course like a relay. If one handler messes up their opening, the other handler has to finish their reds.

Taz was paired with Jag, a great pair of fast shelties. We had a good strategy, but unfortunately, it was not clear where the handlers could be on the switch, and as Taz was finishing his opening, Erin was told she could not be where she was to switch. She had only a few seconds to change her strategy and determine how to get Jag around the first jump, and unfortunately, it was not enough and he took the jump. Hearing the whistle as I was still getting Taz situated, I quickly tried to figure out where she made a mistake...and did the wrong jump, to end our run. AGGH! Well, at least the dogs ran well for us even if the handlers were a bit scatter-brained.

More on how things are going overall. All runs were done small dogs up. Unfortunately, since Time Gamble and the Snooker ran fastest, many of us ended up doing all 3 runs fairly soon after each other. Conversely, the big dog folks had to wait a LONG time to run at all. Imagine walking 3 courses in the morning, and then not getting to run your first one until after 3 pm. You definitely have to be good at remembering courses.

The setup is very nice, with this tent for handlers to sit under. I was even luckier to set my chair next to a cart with a big TV on it...I believe they will be showing the runs as they happen on it later this weekend. But the nice thing for me is that I have a little table for my keyboard to type this up. It's nice not to have to sit on the ground or try and balance it on my lap. As a result, I am MUCH more willing to do a lot of reporting.

Next year's National is definitely in San Diego...but they also told us that it will be late August or early September. I'm voting for Labor Day weekend, although that might make travel a bit more difficult. But would be nice to have the extra day off. Another piece of news is that the Regionals for next year will start earlier this year, with the first in Houston (September?) They are also looking to get interest in the Grand Prix from Europeans, and expanding more in Canada. This year they had a Regional in Mexico, and we do have an exhibitor from there. That means 3 different National Anthems get played!

Animal Planet will of course be filming, and they have a 3-year agreement with USDAA to do 3 trials a year. I think Ken said the Houston show will be the third show this year.

Tonight is the banquet for exhibitor's and Top Ten awards. My roommate will be going back to the hotel, so I am going to show her how to upload the results, and hopefully, these will have made it onto the list fairly early!

Snooker Scramble Results

12" Dogs
1 - Junior and Flint
2 - Tally and Sampson
3 - Amoco and Ripple
4 - Hanna and Tinker

16" Dogs
1 - Heather and Guinness
2 - Mikey and Terminator
3 - Ace and Elvis
4 - Spot and Duce

22" Dogs
1 - Fate and Focus
2 - Ciaran and Eejit
3 - Sammie and Jordan
4 - Ringo and Rip
5 - Tory and Spyder
6 - Cady and Scout
7 - Bradish and Leysha
8 - Castle and Bo

26" Dogs
1 - Suni and Nifty
2 - Flurry and Timeflies
3 - Disney and Jordan
4 - Boz and Calvin
5 - Corky and Blu
6 - Sierra and Mikey

Time Gamble Results - for this one, I'm going to give times, because these were some of the closest times for Time Gamble I've ever seen! These handlers sure are good at guessing their dog's times! In cases where the scores were tied, the handlers had to run another, even shorter course, to see who came closest on the second one.

12" Dogs
1 - 0.65, Hanna (Border Terrier)
2 - 0.71, Spike (All American)
3 - 0.87, Blizzard (Bolognese)
4 - 1.07, Stitch (PWC)
5 - 1.20, Rusty (CWC)
6 - 1.57, Pippin (CWC)

16" Dogs
1 - 0.26, Terminator (Mini Schnauzer)
2 - 0.31, Sooty (All American)
3 - 0.35, Tex (JRT)
4 - 0.39, Heather (Sheltie)
5 - 0.39, Spritzer (All American)
6 - 0.41, Sandy (All American)
7 - 0.41, Honey (JRT)
8 - 0.44, Duder (Sheltie)

22" Dogs
1 - 0.01, Caper (BC)
2 - 0.03, Rusty (Aussie)
3 - 0.07, Awesome (BC)
4 - 0.07, Shadow (Aussie)
5 - 0.09, Keds (BC)
6 - 0.13, Max (All American)
7 - 0.13, Scout (BC)
8 - 0.16, Focus (Aussie)
9 - 0.30, Gemma (BC)
10 - 0.36, Nifty (BC)

26" Dogs
1 - 0.08, Wicked (BC)
2 - 0.13, Boz (BC)
3 - 0.16, Dreamer (Flat-coat)
4 - 0.29, Indi (BC)
5 - 0.38, Lazer (BC)
6 - 0.51, Buzz (BC)
7 - 0.55, Spring (BC)
8 - 0.74, Dodger (Aussie)
9 - 1.00, Crosby (Golden)
10 - 1.01, Hans (GSD)

[Go to Report for Day 2]