Last Day of Competition

28th September – Last day competition

Agility can be a cruel sport, I guess in a way that is it most attractive feature! No matter how hard you train, how good your dog is or even how good your round is, it still comes down to the small moment for success or glory.

Today Team GB began with a real chance of gold in the individual medium and small categories and an outside chance in the large. Mediums were up first, and after yesterday’s run, Natasha was last to go. The course, again, was difficult tight and testing. But Dizzy put in another fantastic round and had everyone thinking to almost the last second that Natasha had done it. However, the judge saw it a little differently and marked another very harsh 5R almost 2 jumps after the deviation had taken place. The stadium collectively gave an unbelievable ahh. Clearly if the 5 stood the best medium was not going to win the WC. Now I don’t want to take anything from the eventually winner (Suisse dog Wytch, which I believe won last year as well). We cannot afford to be bad losers, so well done to them. But Natasha (or another GB member) will never get closer without actually winning. The atmosphere in the dressing room immediately after was collectively one of disappointment. But Natasha being Natasha (supported by Matt) took it very well. Soon the dressing room was back to its usual between run banter.

If I thought I was nervous watching Natasha run, I knew I would be almost unable to watch as my Beacon team mate and WC training partner Nicola ran second from last in the small event. I know that Nicola had trained for such a moment since she had Indi. Now was the opportunity. I personally went upstairs with the supporters and didn’t watch from the collecting ring as normal. After all I didn’t want to shout out the wrong thing at the wrong moment in my support in the pressure moment. Nicola like Tasha handled the pressure round fantastically and had the right time on the clock to be WC. Unfortunately a rolled pole said not this year. Nicola was exceptionally philosophical and had a big smile straight after.

The amount of bad luck messages that were received from international supporters and fellow competitors showed that we are good at agility, and good sports as well. I think that our reputation was enhanced further today. As for Nicola, Natasha, Angela and myself, our dogs are still very young (Jude oldest at 4). I believe that dogs peak between 5 – 8, so watch out rest of world the medium and small teams will be back but with more experienced and just as hungry.

Finally for the large individual. The judge set an exceptionally hard course followed up by some very hard (and a little questionable in my interpretation) judging. To a small extent this took a little gloss off the event. Though the USA dog, Juice, was the best dog and deserved to win. From our perspective, Dave and Spice can feel a little unluckily to be faulted on the see-saw.

So like I wrote yesterday, one still needs a good wind and some luck, particularly when competing at the highest level.
So what can we take from this years event. Well, on the whole GB team / agility is as good as anyone in the world at a given time. But we do have to remember the subtle differences in rules and course design mean we don’t compete identically week in