Bluegrass 2011 Day Four

It was rough going on the final day of the nursery field. They have been switching two different flocks of sheep every day and this was the day of the running sheep. Tam, June and Bracken had terrible runs but you can't really blame them.

Tam making his fetch panels in the nursery

Along with Reba, their solution was to try to get wider to slow the sheep down. Not only did this not have any effect on these sheep, but the field is not wide enough for them to get off of them.

Scott getting ready to send Reba in her nursery run

Later in the day, things got better and June laid down a nice ranch run.
They had let us know that during the second round of the open they would be calling you off if there was no chance for you to either make the double lift, get USBCHA points or get day money. We have been running behind every day and they need to make up that time so they can be finished this evening for the double lift tomorrow. They didn't do too many call offs yesterday but today they are sending people away, right and left.
Maid ran very early in the morning and worked very hard for her run

Maid on her fetch early this morning

for some reason they didn't call her first shed and hold

Maid's first shed and hold

so they had to re shed before they could finish their pen.
Donnie ran in a terribly hot time.

Scott sends Donnie on his second open run

He didn't get a great draw either. They made him have to do alot of fast flanking while they constantly ran to try and escape. He made his fetch panels and had GREAT turn on the drive panels but then lost them way high off line. He got them back on around the fetch gates and the rest of the drive looked good. When they got to the shedding ring, he was exhausted and hot. Unfortunately, the sheep had no intentions of settling down. They continued to race around, getting out of the ring twice. Scott was finally able to take the first one on the head. They regathered and took their time at the pen. Many dogs have lost their dogs at the pen to the exhaust in the past couple of days. Donnie wouldn't have anymore left in him if he had to go get them again so Scott made sure they had a straight line and put them right in.

With relief, Scott shuts the pen gate on Donnie's open run

The final score was an 80. I would think that would be well in. There have been ALOT more 80s in this final round if you drew up at a cooler time (sometimes a nice cloud comes over for a little while and it really helps) but since he has a 90 from yesterday, he should be fine.
A couple of other notable runs today : Alasdair MacRae ran Star (Donnie's mother) and as usual he made it look easy and scored a 91. Lyle Lad was the only one to threaten to top that (at this moment we still have a few hours left) and after she had a beautiful run - only 4 points off to the pen- she lost them behind the pen and they ran to the exhaust with Shep hot on their heels. Shep grabbed one hard and they gave her a DQ.
Don't forget to keep checking the scores on the Bluegrass website and plan on watching the webcast live tomorrow!
http://www.bluegrassclassicsdt.com/