This past weekend we were off to Guelph, Ontario for the Canada Cup event which is held at Royackers Kennels in Arris, Ontario. Canada Cup is a private event that attracts competitors from all over Canada as well as parts of the United States. This year, I heard, there was even a competitor from the Czech Republic. The Canada Cup has two games events that are each a single heat and three championship events, Grand Prix, Jumpers and Steeplechase, that have two heats for each event with the top 45% of dogs moving on to the finals. The top four dogs in each height class win money prizes and really big ribbons.
This was our third year going to the Canada Cup. Some of you might remember that two years ago Beckett qualified to run in the finals of two of the events but I tore a calf muscle in his final Jumpers heat and I was unable to run. Last year we were not fortunate enough to make any of the finals so I was not certain what to expect this year and was thinking that it might be our last Canada Cup.
This year there was a UKI trial the day before Canada Cup was to start so we drove to Guelph on Canada Day so as not to have the long drive and trial on the same day. We got to Royackers on Friday, 2 July with plenty of time to set up both at the outdoor ring for Canada Cup and in the indoor crating area for the UKI trial. Royackers put down artificial turf in the indoor arena this year and it was just wonderful to run on, I hope the dogs liked it too.
Beckett and Keltic were both entered in Jumpers and Agility; Keltic in the Beginners level and Beckett in the Champion level. Keltic did rather well but no Q's. I was especially happy that he did 12 weaves and made the entry on both sets of weaves. He did pop but when I put him back in he did all 12, maybe we're seeing some progress. I thought we only had 5 faults for a dropped bar in the Jumpers run but the score sheet said 15; someone told me that they fault the weaves even at Beginners. They didn't fault the weaves though in the Agility run, where we only had 10 faults for two missed contacts. I guess I have to read the rules before our next UKI trial. Beckett did well getting one Q in Jumpers. It was the first time he had to do a wall jump; I saw him hestitate taking the wall but didn't see exactly what he did to get over it. I was told afterwards he jumped up on the wall but managed to not to take anything down so he was not faulted. A great way to start the weekend.
Canada Cup started on Friday with one of the Games events, a Gamblers. We don't do the Games events. This year had we known the course in advance we might have entered; it was a strategic gamble not a distance gamble so Beckett would have done alright with that. The main Gamble was either four tunnels and a finish jump or three tunnels and the finish jump; if you did all four tunnels you got 25 points and three tunnels got you 15 points. The tunnels were placed around the outside of the ring and the time was tight so you had to really leg it to get them all done.
The first event we were in was Grand Prix 1. It didn't run until about 11 am so I had time to take Beckett and Keltic to play some Frisbee. On Friday and Saturday, we had three runs, Grand Prix, Steeplechase and Jumpers. We had just awesome runs. Over the six events, Beckett had one only bar down; the last bar in the first Jumpers round. Beckett finished 10th and 7th in Steeplechase so I was pretty sure we would make the finals there. He finished 14th and 12th in Grand Prix so pretty steady; some others who had finished well the first day didn't have as much success the second day so we qualified for that final too. In Jumpers, that one bar put us in 16th place; it's time plus faults so fast dogs can make up taking a bar down but Beckett and I have to go clean. I didn't think we could move up enough to make the final. We finished 8th in the second Jumpers heat and I was surprised to see that we made that final too.
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| Just flying |
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| Weav-o-matics |
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| Focus! |
On Sunday, the first event, Grand Prix was held indoors. Beckett and I were psyched to run in our first ever Canada Cup final, we, or at least I, had been waiting for two years. We gave it all we had and ended up in 7th place out of the 12 dogs that were in the final or you could say out of 28 if you included all the dogs in the height class that didn't make the finals.We had a beautifully clear round with a time of 40.53 seconds. Our second final was Steeplechase thought this was our best chance to be in the top four but things didn't go so well. We started fine but had a bar before getting to the weaves to the second time. On the second time through the weaves,Beckett popped his entry. At Canada Cup, this is not faulted but you are losing time. I put Beckett back in but he popped again this time at pole 10, I tried to get him out but he back weaved for 5 faults. We tried the weaves again and again he popped at 10 so I decided to just finish the last three jumps. Not completing the weaves gave us another 20 faults so we finished this event in 11th place. Last up was Jumpers, it was getting rather hot and Beckett was getting tired but we still had a good round and finished in 9th place.
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| Grand Prix 1 |
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| Grand Prix 2 |
Video of Beckett's Grand Prix runs
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| Grand Prix Final |
But to all of you who haven't gone yet to Canada Cup, you need to go at least once!
Great pictures!
ReplyDeleteSounds like a lot of fun! Congrats on making the finals!
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