Novice:
1st Garrethall Toddy LRD Aaron Wright
2nd Castletioram Red Maggie of Glenmarian LRB Marianna Morris-Worrall
3rd Snipe Sister LRB Paul Buckenham
4th Popenhoe Panda LRB Kim Prentice
Special Puppy:
1st Fenbreck Pommery LRB Jean Hosking
2nd Winners Avenue LRB Roy Jarman
3rd Kentwone Opal Luster LRB Arthur Cook
Veteran:
1st Pandapaws Arrin Star GRD Sarah Bond
2nd Glenfia Duke of Marmalade LRD Mick Elsey
Rising Star Cup for the highest placed Novice Handler with Novice Dog
Aaron Wright with Garrethall Toddy
Kelhatch Trophy for Best Essex Novice Entry Garrethall Toddy Aaron Wright
Elmbrook Cup for Best Opposite sex to Novice Winner
Castletioram Red Maggie of Glenmarian Marianna Morris-Worrall
We were welcomed back to this fabulous ground by very kind invitation of Highseas Gundogs and are extremely grateful to Kevin Doughty for once again allowing us to return. Our stewards for the day Mike and Cath set four different tests to cover various disciplines, and our four judges for the day were Andy Mutimer, Peter Hurst, Kelvin Smith and Adam Snare.
On what was forecast to be another extremely hot day the ground allowed us to keep the dogs and handlers in the shade all day, even the judges apart from Peter were working in shade, and along with a lovely breeze the heat was really not too much of an issue.
Test one judged by Peter was at the water, with a mark onto the island which then became a memory, and a blind with shot to be collected straight in front in the area under the willow. There was not a huge amount of scent for the dogs, so some handling was required to stop them going too deep into the ditch and there was also the draw of the water as they were running along the side of the lake. The test was the same for all classes but the Special Puppies were taken closer which meant a shorter run for the blind and a straight swim across for the memory, whereas the Novice and Veteran had a longer run for the blind and a diagonal swim on to the island.
Test two with Andy was run in pairs in the willows, with a left and right mark thrown out in front which tested the dog’s steadiness and hunting ability as well as collecting the correct dummy! It was not so easy for the dogs to see the exact fall of the dummy with trees and ground cover. The distance was shortened for the Special Puppies.
Test three was judged by Kelvin and was a mark and a blind. For the Novice dogs the mark was thrown just over the jump, for the Special Puppy and Veteran dogs it was thrown just in front of the jump. The blind was on the grass just to the right; a few Novice dogs failed to do the jump, but apart from a couple all succeeded on the blind.
Adam was judging the fourth test which was in the meadow area, with a straight mark downhill on the right and when the dog was returning a shot was fired and a dummy thrown away from the dog downhill to the left. Same test for all the dogs just the Special Puppies were taken closer. This looked quite straightforward, but at dog level it was not so easy to see the dummy fall and sadly some dogs could not resist the temptation of the distraction!
Along the way we lost quite a few dogs that failed on one part of a test, spread evenly over all the tests, so everyone knows what they needed to go home and work on!
While the scores were added the raffle was drawn and tea and cakes were enjoyed in the sun. The day concluded with the awards, and worthy winners in all three classes. The winner of the Novice was Aaron Wright who also collected the trophy for Best Essex entry in Novice and also the Rising Star Cup for highest placed Novice handler.
Our grateful thanks to Skinner’s Dog Food for sponsoring us and the winners all received Skinners vouchers.
Thanks again to our four lovely judges for giving up their day and to Kevin for the use of the grounds.
Not forgetting a big thank you to our amazing helpers putting something back to the club without whom these days would not run and also to the hard work behind the scenes to the committee, particularly Mari who had a lot of last minute withdrawals to deal with.