Really went to this show for Dylan to practise running on rubber surfaced contacts. Dig It have Contactacoat sprinkles on their equipment and it is actually looking wrecked right now. Dig It either need to re-cover or buy some new equipment, I don’t think they can keep calling it rubber surfaced if it’s got bald patches and glue patches all over it.
Anyway, Dylan was fine, no issues with any contacts. I feel confident saying that the aluminium, as suspected, is the real issue. He won the Senior Jumping comfortably, fastest time all heights. Spotty 1st rosette! I trained his agility and then ran his Power and Speed and got knocked out on the Power section. With hindsight, I should have trained the P&S since I knew we were going to have the last part of the spread down. Every single Novice and Senior Maxi dog did; it was on a slight angle heading toward the scribe tent, and since the dogs were pushing off the Aframe, they all misjudged their stride position. Dylan just clipped it and the pole rolled off, but a few dogs really crashed it.
No weave issues and no other problems all day though, Dyl was fat and happy. He really is a fatty at the moment, diet begins today and he’s not thrilled.
I took Rio to get measured and surprisingly she got 489mm, which puts her in Standard. Even the measurer was shocked! We got three measurements to make sure and nope, 489 every time. She’ll need to be measured again anyway as she’s under 2yrs, but for now I have to decide whether to run her at Standard or Maxi. Immediate short term is that Standard would be nice for her first show, a little easier and good entry point to competition. Slightly longer short term is that Maxi would be better, I’m not sure how well she’ll switch between heights and she’ll be training consistantly at Large/Maxi, not Standard, anyway. Very long term, in 5-6yrs, I might be wishing she could run Standard. Decisions!
I have entered her in her first two shows: UKA Dig It in July, 2x Steeplechase and 1xJumping, and then 2 Jumping runs a day at Empingham at the end of July. I have no idea if she’ll be ready but the ring experience will do her good if nothing else!
Comments
One response to “UKA Dig It May 2013”
I can’t remember be the progression works but you can do different heights ie start at standard, move to maxi and then drop back to standard later. Pip was measured Toy but I ran her at medium at UKA until after her neck injury. She was champ by then. Inca I’ve always run standard at UKA and she hasn’t got issues with poles at KC (unlike D who sounds to be Dyls twin with issues)
But yay for happy Dyl 🙂