BevLive: Meeker, Day 3

I think this was the toughest day of running. Especially this morning the sheep seemed very hard to get alongand there were quite a few bad wrecks.

Amanda ran in the midst of this and squeeked out a 54, which proved good enough for the semis. Hemp ran shortly after Amanda and was a good boy. He nailed the outrun, an enormous relief as it can be very tricky and has done in quite a few dogs this year. The rest of his run pleased me very much as his lines were good, given that we were working with Meeker sheep, and he got all his obstacles. We had a bit of trouble at the pen. The sheep were a lot less keen to pen today than they had been for some reason. Later in the day Vicky Close had a good run lost when a sheep split at the pen and was gone. Many good runs that on previous days would probably have penned did not today.Go figure.

The best run of the day was easily Tom and Sly. A very clean run with good lines. Sly made it look easy. Hemp had a nice run but it never looked easy.

Poor Mirk ended up 31st, alas. But at least I got in with Hemp. Nice to have two reasonable shots at the semis even if only one of them came through.

We drew the running order after the last run. Amanda is 2nd with Ethel and 15th with Clive. Tom is around 22 with Sly. I'm 16th with Hemp.

The running this morning was so poor it's had to know what's a good draw. So I'll guess that 16 is and go to bed happy.

I exhausted again with Esther this morning. A great chance for her to work these sheep a little with me there to help her out. She handled them much better than yesterday, pleasing me greatly.

It's a bit tricky exhausting with these young dogs. It's important not to lose sight of the work being to benefit the trial. Some folks get out there with dogs not up to the work leaving the competitors waiting while they train their dogs at the exhaust. Amanda and I were careful to go over together to make sure if either of us got into difficulty the other could help to speedily clear the field. A pet peeve of mine if you can't tell. Hate to see people training their dogs at the exhaust while my sheep are sitting at the top end of the field waiting for me.

Speaking of which, this trial has had some of the best sheep spotting I have ever seen anywhere. Each group speedily spotted in the same place and nicely held. The spotters have also not been shy about putting bad groups away. That's not to say that they didn't spot some groups that were harder to hold then others. There is no way to avoid the luck of the draw at even the best run trial.