Epworth - 17/18th June

2nd weekend on the trot with the whole club at Epworth hosted by Notts Superdogs Flyball Team.

Chris, Julia and Tina arrived on Friday1st and set up taking the lights again. Jemma & Ash, Gem and Martin, Claire, Tine & Dean and Abbie also came up today with Beth joining us on Saturday.

Saturday dawned fine and we were up early again setting up the lights in ring 2. Today Wash Warriors ( Indie, Stan, Zarah and Pip) were running along with Aztec (Eddie, Jessie, Flo and Bessie). Aztec were up first with us posting no times for the 1st race as Eddie was again running out with Jessie following his lead this time!! The 2nd race we managed to post 3 times including a 21.42 (which ended up as our fasted posted time). The afternoon racing started with Eddie running out again and after a quick discussion within the team it was decided to go WFC again to correct him. Placing netting on the first jump sorted the problem and he ran consistently after this even managing a 3.78s - go Eddie go! The last heats were consistently in the 20 sec times so we just need consistency now with this team. A mention needs to go to Pip today who gained her !,000 points Flyball dog award - well done Pip and Martin.

Wash Warriors made hard work of their races today. In the first race they won the first heat but early crosses meant we lost the next 3 with no times. The second race was against Funky Fidos and with banter in the ring we managed to take 3 heats off them only losing1 heat. The 3rd race we lost to Blue Sky but managed our fastest time of the day of 19.60 s. In the afternoon we took Brigg Mutley to 5 heats winning 3 and posting another 19s time. The last race we lost to Workshire but by this time the dogs had slowed down as it had again been hot today. We were surprised therefore when Wash came away with a 3rd place at presentation.

Sunday dawned with us running both Vikings (Blue, Bonnie, Willow and Charly) and Brave Warriors (Lottie, Maggie, Mabel and Naya).

Vikings 1st race was against Sheffield Sprinters and we won the first 2 heats, but managed to lose the next 3!! However Willow hadn't run in open since last year so we weren't sure how she would react especially as we were running her 3rd with Charly running into her. She posted 3 times and was looking good. The 2nd race we lost the first 2 heats and won the next 3 posting our fastest time of the day of 21.59 s. The afternoon saw us win both the races so with 3 out of 4 wins we felt we had a chance of a rosette. Willow ran well with Charly being posted in from the side and took a 2 ft cross, so that seems to be working. At presentation we took 2nd place in the division which we were very pleased with.

Brave had 4 races today. Lottie clocked up 9 clear runs and Naya clocked up 8, we even tried Naya off the box but went back to the chute as she was dropping a hind leg on the turn (needs work). Maggie was happier as she had Ash back handling her and after a slow start managed clear runs with Mabel doing them as well. Ball spitting is still their problem in general so we still need lots of work on this before the champs.