East Anglian Game Fair Team Event 25th & 26th April 2015
Bren van Laun with Tavy, Susan Cooper with Harvey and Georgina Bryant with Roxy were invited to represent the Essex Branch of the U.R.C. at the game fair on 25th and 26th April 2015.
We found ourselves to be the only all female team and were complimented on our turnout; we were of course sporting our club fleeces and t-shirts!
None of us had competed in this sort of competition before so it was all new to us. The arena was huge; approx 300mtrs diagonally which had been transformed by areas of brushwood, straw bales, pens and fences. This created plenty of scope for the judges to set five different tests with long retrieves both seen and blinds with plenty of jumping to reach them and return. The set up was very effective if a little daunting for two of our team. I was first to go and Tavy was all at sea and failed to score, Georgina had a good start, so we had some points on the chart. Poor Harvey and Sue had a horrid moment when Harvey got stuck in a fence, this did frighten him,
and left him for the rest of that day feeling very anxious. Tavy scored another duck in the second test, but Georgina came to the rescue with a good score. On the third test Tavy was far more confident and at last scored!! At this point the judges were brilliant and made sure that Harvey had a happy retrieve, and things picked up from this point on.
Day two. We were a different team. All the dogs were now doing their best things and we all got good scores, ending with a picking up test that was great fun and we finished well within the time allowed. I am glad to say our team was not last, and we were 6th out of seven. We were very grateful to the judges who were so helpful when things were not going well. In the judge’s summing up we had a special mention and he said how pleased he was that our team had improved so much during the competition.
The winning team was UGS Eastern Branch who swept the board from start to finish
(Brian Chesser,Tracy Chesser and Lee Hayman) and Brian won the Top Dog award. Congratulations to you all.
This was a very happy weekend, the organizers, their helpers and other competitors were all very friendly making for a very pleasant atmosphere, and from my point of view it was good to make friends with my team and their spouses.
Bren van Laun