The Final Agility Trial of 2010

Yesterday was Jimmy's and my final agility trial of the year. This was another trial that should have been at the now-closed equestrian center just 45 minutes from home. Originally I was signed up for both days, but their new location was way too far away. I don't do motels when it comes to agility, as that just completely blows the budget, and would consume all my training funds. So I dropped one day, and kept just Saturday. It was a 2 1/2 hour drive one way down to the Richmond International Raceway. The trial was held in an open-air, but roofed arena with a dirt floor. Oh, the DUST! Yuck! I now know what the folks who went to the USDAA Nat'ls in KY were talking about! I am sure this wasn't as bad, but still yuck! And the surface was very hard with a layer of dirt over top that made it quite slick. The club that holds this trial does a wonderful job and go out of their way to make sure everyone has a good time, so I will be sad if this turns out to be their new regular spot as I won't come back.

Anyway, on to our runs. First was Jimmy's first try at Excellent A STD. You get one quess at where we went wrong......yep, the Table. Jimmy did hop right on, but didn't stay for the count :-(
I shifted slightly to start my front cross to the next obstacle and I am sure he read my movement as a release cue. Bummer. But he did get on, so hopefully this was just a blip. The rest of his run was nice, he nailed his running DW contact even with a U-turn to a tunnel. And he had great fast time, so all in all a pretty good job.

Shortly thereafter came Excellent B JWW. It was a very tricky course with lots of side changes and a tough weave entry. Jimmy did it all in style! He was fast and clean. We had 49 seconds to get it done and Jimmy finished in 33.46. This still wasn't quick enough to place but we did come in 8th place which is still pretty darn good in the 12 inch class. We beat all the corgis and quite a few shelties! This run gave us another 15 MACH points as well. Woohoo!

Tracking Jimmy's MACH progress:
Excellent B JWW legs: 4 (out of 10 needed for his MXJ)
Excellent B STD legs: 0 (out of 10 needed for his MX)
Double Q's: 0 (out of 20 double-Q's needed for a MACH)
MACH Points: 52 (out of 750 speed points needed for a MACH)