Wild Rose Classic

After the rather exciting weather start, the Wild Rose Classic settled into the business of putting on a trial. This is a beautiful location. The field is a gentle slope with some trees at the top to hide the set out and behind the camping area is a forest with a creek (after all the rain it's imitating a river) running through it. It was planned to have a camp fire last night down in the woods but with the rain and the trial going over on time, things didn't work out. We did have a free chili lunch yesterday which was enjoyable. Every new trial has it's bumps that are ironed out in the first year and this year the set out was a learning experience. Don Grant (owner of the property and host) and Randy Dye (host) have been working overtime to fix the problems and ultimately, the only thing affected was time. We didn't finish last night but finally stopped the runs at 10PM. After finishing up things this morning, we started the open back up again. I'm off to the Stampede as soon as we are finished today so I'm not sure how much of an update I will have time for. I will try to get the top 10 scores posted on the drive over. George Stambulic is our judge and is doing a good job sorting things out. The young dogs ran first yesterday. The nursery and pro novice (same as open ranch in the east) were run as a class within a class. June ran out well and landed behind her sheep but the set out flanked their dog and drove the sheep back on her. She had no more room for a lift and ended up trying to charge them but they like to divide up on the dog if they can so after she struggled a little bit, Scott went up to help her. He figured if he could help her bring the sheep down that would be good enough and he wouldn't take his rerun, but the set out dog ended up driving them over her and back to set out so with those bad experiences, Scott figured he better take the rerun and show her she could lift them just fine. She did. Well enough to win the nursery and place 3rd in the Pro-novice, which was won by Norm Close. Reba had an even better run. It was very pretty but there was a little hearing issue right in front of the drive away panels and she took a wrong flank and almost headed them. It lost her the win but she was second in the nursery and 4th in the Pro-Novice. Tam did a really nice outrun and it looked like he was going to get the sheep down the field but they dodged him and ran back up so Scott retired him. Nan, with her lack of training because of the broken foot she had earlier in the year, pulled up short and just wouldn't get across the top. Scott had to help her get over and then retired her.
The Open got going as fast as it could after that. Maid had sheep that tested her but she did a really nice job with them and ended up tied for second with Joanne Zoerb and her young dog Soot. Donnie did the nicest run of the day and he and Scott smoothly walked those sheep around for 92 and the win of the day.
Hemp wasn't bad. I let him come on too hard because he was on line and I was afraid if I stopped him that they would go off line. Scott said I've got to quit that so when I run him later today, I will try it. He ended up gripping off at the pen but I actually thought he'd done his nicest pen yet. Since it is our albatross, it was nice to see him try to do it right. The grip was minor, he might not even have totally made contact but I ran at him and gave him trouble for it anyway.
Lad had a funny thing happen on his outrun. He didn't run until this morning for his first run. I went to the post as the sheep were settled and noticed that for some reason, two set out people had chosen that moment to walk up the side of the field. It was going to take them some time to get up there (and time is something this trial is short on) so I told the judge that if they could get them to stop, I would send my dog anyway. I figured it would confuse Laddie but we are ok on points for the finals and it might be good training for him. The judge yelled at them, and they stopped. So knowing I was probably throwing my run, I sent him anyway. He went out on a really nice line and then spotted them and gave ground, figuring that they had some sheep hiding out with them. He slowed down but never stopped when he saw they didn't have anything and didn't need a whistle to get up to the top and bring his sheep. The rest of the run was ok but not in the money. A couple of hours later, he had to run his second run. Unfortunately, my previous bid to save time messed with him on his next outrun. When he didn't see those people that he'd seen on the first outrun, he bent out looking for them. He didn't find sheep there before, so he shouldn't have done it but like I said, I knew it would confuse him and I wasn't thinking that I was going to have to run him again so quickly. He didn't need any redirects until the top so I blew him over and then the rest of the run was nice but we had a wiley ewe at the pen and she wasn't going in. I retired rather than keep running them around because with that outrun, I needed a pen. I was ok with that - I chalked it up to training, until the guy who had screwed up the outrun this morning, told me that the dog was wide and he was perfectly within his rights to walk up the field during my outrun. I'm afraid that it's been a long trip and I did what I shouldn't have and told him why he was wrong in a volume that was perhaps not what you would call an "inside" voice. I just couldn't take the fact that I threw the run to save time and he thought what he did was fine. I didn't convince him he was wrong. I probably made an enemy and I'll never get him as a client but since he already thought he knew what he was doing, I guess he probably wasn't going to ask us for help training anyway.
Donnie had a good second run this morning but couldn't get a shed. He finally did but it knocked him down quite a bit in the points.
We are running to a standard right now so hopefully Hemp doesn't get the hook this afternoon!
I'm having trouble getting computer reception here so I can't post pictures right now but I'll try it tonight when we hit the road.
Scott will be going home tonight and I will be off to the Stampede with Lisa and Louanne. I need to hurry now and not miss his run with Maid. - whoops I missed it (he said she was really good ) but he said he had a lung-er so he's getting a rerun and I'll catch that one.