April 3rd-5th, 2009
"Sunnyside", Tarwonga
Results:
Novice Yard
1st Neil Kristiansen Karrawarra Shona (kelpie) 45
=2nd Andrew Gorton Boylee Ella (collie) 44
=2nd Hayden Harries Mac's Magic (collie- a Fred daughter) 44
Mike Scott and Torbay Tig (imp UK) did some very nice work in their first ever yard trial:
Novice Utility
1st Neil Kristiansen Karrawarra Shona (kelpie) 45y 74u
2nd Ken Atherton Kiwi Knight (NZHD) 42y 71u
3rd Marianne Rogers Bellview Obie (Bernie- collie) 42y 62u
=4th Neil Kristiansen Badgingarra Syd (kelpie- a Shona son) 38y 56u
=4th Andrew Gorton Boylee Ella (collie) 44y 56u
=4th Denise Scudds Badgingarra Pete (collie/NZHD) 39y 56u
Ramulam Gus:
Open Yard
1st Neil Kristiansen Badgingarra Toppie (collie) 45 + 45 = 90 (perfect score!)
2nd Ken Atherton Ramulam Gus (collie) 45 + 44 = 89
=3rd Neil Kristiansen Badgingarra Syd (kelpie) 44 + 43 = 88
=3rd Neil Kristiansen Karrawarra Shona (kelpie) 44 + 43 = 88
=3rd Neil Kristiansen Badgingarra Casey (collie) 44 + 43 = 88
=6th Nigel Armstrong Yarralonga Delta (kelpie) 44 + 42 = 86
=6th Nigel Armstrong Yarralonga Darkie (kelpie- Delta's sire) 43 + 43 = 86
8th Gordon Curtis Binnaburra Tuff (kelpie- Syd's sire) 43 + 40 = 83
9th Ken Atherton Kiwi Knight (NZHD) 42 + 39 = 81
10th Richard McGuire Boylee Fred (collie) 44 + 33 = 77
11th Neil Kristiansen Bellview Shadow (NZHDxcollie) 42 + 34 = 76
12th Richard McGuire Yarralonga Charlie (kelpie) 43 + 32 = 75
Binnaburra Maggie:
Open Utility
1st Neil Kristiansen Badgingarra Casey (collie) 65 + 83.5 = 148.5
2nd Ken Atherton Ramulam Gus (collie) 75 + 69 = 144
3rd Gordon Curtis Binnaburra Tuff (kelpie) 70 + 69.5 = 139.5
4th Neil Kristiansen Badgingarra Syd (kelpie) 69 + 70 = 139
5th Neil Kristiansen Badgingarra Toppie (collie) 61 + 75.5 = 136.5
6th Nigel Armstrong Yarralonga Delta (kelpie) 58 + 74.5 = 132.5
7th Gordon Curtis Binnaburra Jess (kelpie- Tuff daughter) 65 + 65 = 130
8th Nigel Armstrong Yarralonga Darkie (kelpie) 57 + 67 = 124
9th Denise Scudds Badgingarra Cody (collie) 62 + 61.5 = 123.5
10th Tony Boylee Boylee Dot (collie) 62 + 48 = 110
11th Gibb Macdonald Boylee Poppy (collie) 65 + 42 = 107
12th Andrew Gorton Ramulam Pepsi (kelpie) 56 + 41 = 97
Badgingarra Cody:
And his teammate, Denise Scudds:
And a bit of a report:
First yard/utility trial of the year. The weather was fantastic, warm and sunny and not too much wind, which unfortunately didn't prevent the dust kicking up into a cloud that enveloped the entire yards and layered spectators' clothes and mucous membranes.
The sheep, Sunnyside's resident Dohnes, weren't the easiest ever. There were quite a lot of individualists among them, who tried to take their own line wherever possible, and they knew the locations of all the gates in case they felt like leaving early. At one point in the Open utility, the sheep seemed particularly spooked by the morning sun illuminating the orange webbing on the gate into the yards, and completely refused to go anywhere near it, ending a number of top dogs' runs very early.
Some of a new mob were used for the Open utility final, and the improvement in their workability was incredible. Apparently we'll be having more like them for the States next week, to everyone's relief.
And the winners were- the sheep:
The unexpectedly huge number of entries meant that the Mayanup club had to modify the utility course, dropping off the pen so that theoretically the course ended with releasing the sheep from the trap. I say 'theoretically', because few teams managed to get any sort of utility score over the whole trial, and only two handlers actually achieved the trap.
Despite the large entry, technical malfunctions and the need for running modifications as the weekend progressed, the trial ran very smoothly thanks to the fantastic office staff (namely, Jenny Atherton, ably supervised by BabyJ).
The man in charge:
The yard course was fairly straightforward and scores were so tight that there was no room for error- losing one or two points with a minor mistake or an unlucky break could cost a place.
The usual suspects dominated the results, with Neil Kristiansen's kelpies Shona and her son Syd, and collies Casey and Toppie making it a family affair. There were also a few young dogs making their mark, and it was nice to see some fairly new handlers performing well.
After an extended break from yard trialling, Gibb Macdonald's Boylee Poppy had a great utility run to make the Open final, and Hayden Harries' collie bitch Mac's Magic returned from serious injury and very expensive surgery to place equal second in the Novice Yard.
Nan Lloyd had some excellent work from Driftz in the utility and her young dog Caleb in the yard, just missing out on the money.
Nan Lloyd's Christie's Driftz:
R's crew had a mixed weekend. Tess, Sally and Jake all worked well, although Tess is still a bit confused about the yard trial format. Jim made his trial debut, and surprised us all by seeming completely discombobulated. The strange set-up and even stranger behaviour of his handler totally threw him, and he didn't seem to know what he was supposed to be doing, which was very weird for such a full-on yard dog. Bella did OK, but a few simple errors were costly.
Fred was very unlucky in the utility, his sheep catching the morning glare on the yard gate and just refusing to go near it, but he and Charlie both had near-perfect runs in the yard to qualify fot the Open final, where R's finals hoodoo got the better of them again.
I don't really have a yard dog to run at the moment, so we just went along to have fun. I had Queani in everything, and also entered Muddy, to see how he'd go. Surprisingly, I was happy with Muddy and really disappointed with Quean. I didn't think Mud would have any chance of holding on to the sheep in his utility runs, but in the Novice he did a pretty nice cast and brought the sheep straight down the ground, quietly and carefully, before I realised that he only had four, and finally spotted the fifth sheep right down the other end of the ground. I managed to get him to drive the four back down towards the let out, then called him off and recast, in an attempt to get the five collected, but that fifth sheep had no interest in going near the others and it was just too hard for us (as it was for many better teams).
In his Open utility Muddy did some really nice work, flanking wide and cleanly and trying to settle his sheep, but we just couldn't get them into the ring and retired again. His yard runs were nothing special, but not an embarrassment, and I enjoyed working him. We made 39 in Novice yard, and I helped him a bit in the Open for a 21. I was just so pleased to see him looking like a half-decent dog again in his outside work, showing a bit of cover and some common sense, and his hip wasn't troubling him too much.
Queani was a total cow in both utility runs. She did her usual awesome casts, and lifted fairly calmly, but then completely ignored my suggestion to "steady", and buzzed the sheep at the top. Usually Queani can get away with a little buzz, with only a loss of points, but on these sheep it was fatal, and we had no chance of salvaging our runs. She was better in the yards, and scored a 35 in the Novice and 40 in the Open with a bit of bad luck.
I really missed trialling Bill. Even though I'm sure pulling him from yard/utility trials was the right move given his force pen phobia, I just missed working him. And he missed working, getting increasingly frantic and sulky as the weekend progressed and I kept passing him by to take out the other dogs. Maybe next year, Bill.
Next weekend everyone's back to Tarwonga for the State Yard/Utility. Apparently there'll be some really tough courses in the main yards up at the shed, designed to really test the dogs' ability to force, and to sort the real yard dogs from the rest. We're looking forward to it!
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