Incredipaws Day 2

(Still trying to catch up!)

Masters Gamblers:
Lexi Q:  It's hard for me to post this video, because I stepped on the gamble line.  I came off and was really mad at myself (not happy) because I didn't think I Qd.  The judge didn't say anything.  I still feel a little guilty about it.  But, I know Lexi would have done it even if i wasn't on the line, so I guess that's a good thing.  I was really proud because Jonathan came up with a great plan.  First of all, the course is sort of a mirror of itself, so we could "practice" the gamble on the opposite side of the course (which you can see we did twice).  And then Jonathan noticed that if the dog came out of the opposite end of the tunnel, they had a straight line out to the jumps, and they couldn't really see the weaves at all.



Bentley:  This was too bad, because I really felt like this was something that Bentley is capable of.  He was able to get out just fine as he "practiced", but the weaves threw him off since we practice getting out to weaves so often.  Oh well.



Masters Snooker:
Lexi Q:  Jonathan ran this course and came off discouraged.  I think I've mentioned it before, but Lexi only needs Super Qs so he typically goes for riskier plans.  During this run I realized that his timing is really off with her.  He managed to get her around the course, but there were a lot of miscommunications.  I'm sure it's due to the fact that he doesn't run her very often in practice.



Bentley Super Q:  And again, Bentley with the Super Q!  A really nice run.  He is quite fun to run in Snooker :)




Masters Challenge Jumpers:
Lexi:  Yikes.  This course was tough!  I knew it would be, and in fact, I didn't enter it.  But, the trial secretary entered us by mistake and since we were helping her all weekend, she gave it to us as a free entry.  I asked my trainer and she said we should give it a try.  And in all honesty, I wasn't disappointed!  We struggled where I thought we would (the weave entry, for example).  I was a little surprised that we got the refusal at jump 4, but it happened to a lot of people.  Because of the angle, dogs were pushing off to jump 8, or were reading it as a rear to 8, so I held her too far to the left purposefully.  Can't be mad about that :) I really liked how we went through 10 through 16.  And I saw a ton of dogs go wide around 16 and miss 17.  Oh well.  It was a good experience!



Bentley:  This run was really nice.  Even Bentley went wide at 16 to 17 for a refusal.  But, the crazy thing?  He was 4 seconds over course time.  Even if he hadn't missed that jump he wouldn't have Qd, he would have been over course time.  Now I know that Bentley isn't the fastest sheltie out there, but he isn't THAT slow.  I guess course times are tight for these challenge-type courses.  It's a little discouraging, though, because I don't think we could have tightened it up that much.



Masters Jumpers:
Lexi:  Darn darn darn.  One day we'll get it together!  Unfortunately we only got half of the run on video, and it was the bad half.  The remainder of the run was clean.  I'm still really struggling with timing of forward sends.  And I peeled off too soon here--definitely my fault.



Bentley:  Well, again we had a video camera malfunction and didn't get this taped.  Good thing, though, because it was awful!

Steeplechase Finals:
Lexi:  I decided to try to use Finals as a testing ground to work on things I might not be as willing to try elsewhere.  That's why I threw in the blind.  I also tried to push Lexi a bit more, and keep myself moving.  I think we did a pretty good job.  We got one of the weave entries, but I don't know if my FC was poorly timed, or if Lexi didn't read it correctly (probably me) and she missed the second one.



Bentley:  Yay!  1st place!