Page 44 - 2018 WT Almanac

Dave Self, Maggie Richardson line accurately stewarded the competitors
Search Steward: Pam Clarke with clear instructions, in a friendly manner.
C/A Steward: Caroline Ashford Thank you all very much for your time and
expertise.
My thanks to SDTS for inviting me to judge 54 dogs entered, 47 ran, of which 31 qualified
the Ticket Stake at the spring Championship in the nosework section; 23 of these qualified
Trial, when the original judge had to with- overall, a very satisfying result.
draw. I hope all is well with you, Paul, and I The test started with the speak, followed by
hope to see you back in trials soon. the track, and then the square. Nosework, as
As always, the organisation of the trial was ever at this Surrey trial, was on grass, all well
first class, with rookie trials manager, Mark grown, and in places lush. This led to some
Lewindon, leaving nothing to chance, and excellent tracks, but search articles proved
keeping me informed at every step of the more difficult, with a number of dogs fail-
preparations. Thanks, Mark, and also thanks ing to recover the necessary 2 articles. The
to Stan for sorting out all the land, including search articles were all in the centre of the
a last-minute change of fields on the first day. square, which was well foiled. The track ar-
The team at base, Chris Brooks and Sandra ticles were a 6” green fuzzy garden tie, a 5.5”
Lewindon, did their usual excellent job, mak- piece of garden stick and a 3” x 1” piece of
ing sure that every competitor arrived on time green scourer, and search articles were a blue
and in the right place. And special thanks to milk bottle top, half a wooden clothes peg,
Sandra and Mark for looking after my young a small U-shaped piece of rubber and a 4.5”
dog, meaning that I had no worries about him metal garden staple.
while I was out in the fields. And thanks also The control and agility was, on the whole,
to everybody in the kitchen, who kept us well very impressive, with good heelwork and
supplied with refreshments throughout the some first class sendaways. The sendaway
day. was to 3 red poles making a triangle, each
approximately 120 yards away, and handlers
were asked to send their dogs to all 3 poles, in
the order of their choosing; the most popular
choice was to start with the centre pole. The
jumps were generally well done, and all but
4 dogs successfully completed the down stay.
1st Pat Parkinson with WAGGER-
LAND MY SHADOW, WSD, D, 216, Q. Pat
and Shadow lost just half a mark on each of
the track and search, and followed this with
an excellent C/A round. Congratulations,
Pat, on making Shadow, subject to KC ap-
proval, a Working Trials Champion.
2nd Pat Herbert and GLENALPINE
FEN, BC, B, 214, Q. Just a couple of mi-
nor blips on the track, and a full mark square,
followed by a near perfect C/A round, gave
My team out in the fields must be among the Pat and Fen this well-deserved second place.
best in the country. Stan, Tess, Dave and Well done, such a consistent team.
Maggie laid all the tracks to perfection, ex- 3rd Jane Wood with WTCh LUDGATE
actly as I wanted, and Pam proved to be an POWER ‘N’ GLORY, BC, D, 213.5, Q. A
excellent square steward, being totally con- superb track, 4 articles from the square, and
sistent in every respect. On C/A day, Caro- then an excellent C/A round resulted in a very
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