Diamond Show and ‘Straddle’ ‘Gert’ ‘Clumpy’ ……..

………are some new words that we all learnt this weekend!

Which is fairly suggestive of how the weekend went! I don’t know how a show manages to create certain atmospheres – but Diamond certainly seem to win hands down on the fun and laid back atmosphere vibe. The show is a nice size, 6 rings, with everyone closely camped to the rings and therefore lots of time to watch the classes. This is something I miss at the bigger shows as it is nice to see different people run the courses you are running and to support your friends.

I say support your friends – some people obviously have a different view and like to heckle their friends on the start line! How rude!!

The 6/7 Agility started quite late on the day and it seemed that a fair portion of the audience as well as the competitors had decided to make the most of the lovely sunny weather and very sensibly had a cool drink in their hands to prevent from overheating.

This will be the point at which my lovely friend developed a new nickname for me – of which she chose to share with me and everyone else in the close vicinity as I walked onto the start line with Thai. The words ‘ Here comes Cider Sarah’ could be heard as I walked out – I then had to try and stop giggling to be able to release Thai from the start line – and completed the course fairly well – I can’t actually remember what he did wrong – might have been a pole? Nevertheless he did all the hard opening sequence. I decided to layer a jump which we never really do so he got a bit confused by that but still did as I asked. I then decided to go and get Cruze and rejoin the queue. This will be the point at which my new nickname was amended slightly. I got a little bit lost and as I turned found I was pretty much on top of the DW, I somehow managed to get one foot either side of it and still get Cruze into the tunnel and Pat’s new favourite word was born ‘Straddle’!!.....and I was to be called Straddling Cider Sarah for the rest of the weekend!!

My highlight of the weekend was collecting Thai’s 2^nd place trophy from Barry for his G6 Jumping and Barry asking if Thai was my blue merle and saying his weaves were awesome J I smiled for at least an hour after that J No one ever comments on my dogs and I was so pleased that a judge had said Thai was good – and this was about 4 hours after we had run J

Cruze went clear in the other G6 jumping judged by Andrew Dicker – it was handly in places, blasty in others and a fairly hard left hand weave entry – Cruze was lovely all day long and we both got it right on this course – another 2^nd place J Unfortunately I gave Cruze a late command on one jump where we needed a good turn, a left flick around the outside wing – Cruze landed right, went to come in, heard me say left and did an about turn, looked at the equipment on the outside of the ring and then came round – probably lost me a good second, so pleased that we still came 2^nd.

They were both good in the 6/7 Agility on Sunday as well – this was the sort of course that at the beginning of the season I would of felt over phased walking into the ring and seeing all the equipment so close together and pointing all in the same direction! But I walked it and was happy I could attack it. Thai just had a pole – completely my fault – spatial awareness again and I nearly fell over the wing while trying to push Thai left for the long jump. Cruze missed his see-saw contact – he can’t really work out how to slide a rubber seesaw – which is fair enough. This is the only gripe I would have with the weekend – and it is not directed at Diamond at all as other shows have also done this and I heard several people saying the same thing. I believe that shows need to either use rubber contacts or not – not have half the runs on rubber and half on normal contacts. I think this will really lead onto the fact that there needs to be a decision on whether the KC are going to put in a rule change or not.

I couldn't resist including this picture! My friends are so good at catching Cruze's personality! I am assuming there was a jump behind him - but it jsut looks like he is happy to see the weaves!!

Magic was amazing and had a flying round in the Olympia Qualifier – just unfortunately missing the weave entry which is a real shame as she was working really nicely.

I think Magic was certainly enjoying herself this weekend – she was a bit naughty in Neil’s class trying to do the see-saw, DW and A-frame all as one obstacle! She finally got a clear round last thing on the Sunday in the 4/5 Agility – but never the one to not stick something extra in she slipped and fell on her head and wasted a couple of seconds regaining her composure and working out which way was up! Still she came 4^th J She also had a nice run in one of her jumpings – just slipping in the weaves and missing a pole – she seemed to slip on the grass in places where it was cut and really short – she looked totally surprised and carried on in them but obviously was eliminated.

Diamond is definitely my favourite show of the year so far, it was up there in the top 3 last year and I’m already looking forward to it next year! Diamond certainly chose some bl**dy good judges for their show; Neil Ellis, Andrew Dicker, Martin Cavill, Barrie James and Lee Windeatt all set some really good courses – I haven’t enjoyed being in Grade 6 as much as I did this weekend and Dan enjoyed having some courses to test his handling and all the work he has been doing at training – all the courses were enjoyable and testing and most importantly – do-able!!

Well we have a weekend off this weekend to be ‘normal’ people – I’m sure we will get bored and do lots of training! Then we are off to UKA week the week after.  SWAG sponsors the UKA Nationals and I also have my first judging appointment. We also have 15 runs a day! So I suspect I will need a week off to recover afterwards!!