Assington August 19th
Results:
1st For the Cresthaven Cup – Overthwarts Bilton LRD - Keith Foster
2nd For the Pathfinder Cup – Brindlebay Boconnoc LRD - Simon Fordham
3rd For the Crosspath Cup – Birdsgreen Thembi of Spurgate LRB - Brian Chesser
4th Hitowngreen Kite LRB – Verity Easey
COM Malshinga Bhutan LRD- Arthur Cook
Best Essex Entry for the Royanne Cup - Overthwarts Bilton LRD - Keith Foster
Judges Choice for the Oysterbed Cup - Overthwarts Bilton LRD - Keith Foster
This was our final event for 2018 and yet again we were lucky with the weather! Good conditions for the dogs, not too hot and a cooling breeze for us all.
We were welcomed back to Park Farm by kind permission of Mr & Mrs Brooks, and our thanks to them for kindly allowing us to use the sugar beet particularly as it has not been a good year generally for beet. We are also grateful to our sponsors Masters Dog Foods who supplied bags of dog food for 1st 2nd and 3rd places.
Our judges for the day were Mike Skipper and Peter Fulcher, and again our thanks to them for giving up their day to judge for us. Thanks too for our helpers for the day, we couldn't run the tests without people willing to come and help.
The day started with a four dog walk up in the beet with two marks for each handler straight out in front, we had our "ace" dummy throwers Gordon & David so the dummies although long were high so the dogs and handlers had plenty of chance to mark the dummy. This gave the judges a good opportunity to see the dogs working at distance and their ability to hunt the beet. Some of this ground was undulating so some of the competitors needed to "trust their dog" as they disappeared out of sight at times.
The day continued with four dogs back in line but under the other judge for a single mark behind. The dogs had clear marks but you needed your dog to turn with the handler otherwise the mark became a blind, one or two dogs struggled on this one.
After lunch the stewards made use of a stubble field for a walk up with a blind off the end of the line. This sorted the dogs out, as this was quite a tricky exercise with the wind playing a big part. It was a long line-up with four competitors, plus the next four dogs walking in the middle as well as judges, dummy carriers and the throwers. The retrieve was a blind to shot straight off the end of the line, the dogs needed to run down the length of the line, some dogs made it look very easy, but several dogs struggled and sadly some failed.
A cut was made and the final exercise was a long mark from a stubble field, across a track, over a ditch into the sugar beet again. The fall of the dummy was into a dip, so this made it difficult for the handler to assess the fall. Some dogs pulled to the shot but some made it look very easy!
The day finished with the raffle and tea and some very delicious cakes before the prize giving.
The winner Keith Foster was very surprised, and his dog at just under two was a very worth winner only dropping 2 points all day. Keith won our Novice test last month and won a Special Puppy Test earlier in the year.
Our Chairman Mike Lawrence also thanked everyone but gave a special mention to all the committee for the work they do not just at the tests but "behind the scenes" as well.
We look forward to seeing you all at our tests next year. Have a good season.
Report by Cath Elsey