BevLive: second verse, not the same as the first

Second day of open. Exactly the same course. Wasn't a problem, not like any of us had aced it the first day. Mirk ran second and redeemed himself with a nice run and an 80 which stood until late afternoon when Amanda and Roz beat it by a point for the win. Dennis Gellings and Jake had a real nice mid-afternoon run earning 73 with no pen. At the end of the trial Terry Folsom got a 79, I think. At any rate she came third.

The sheep developed a propensity for running into the audience at the turn and shed. This ended several very promising runs as one sheep would take off and refuse to return. For the most part, however, the sheep were much better today. They stayed together on the top and demonstrated more willingness to come down the fetch. The setout also went much smoother with an improved pen design speeding the trial and allowing us to finish in time for the great handlers dinner.

The weather remained clear and while the wind picked up in the afternoon, it never blew too hard and didn't affect the hearing on the course. I think the dogs could hear a bit better at the second drive gate and many more groups went through it. Yesterday out of about 65 runs we had 37 dogs with no scores. Most of those with scores were in the 40-60 range with 60 being a good score. Today I'm sure no more then a third of the dogs failed to score. It was still a really hard trial. Just got a little easier fir those who could keep the sheep from panicking on the fetch.

Nel and Fly both ran much better. Fly had a really good run up to the shed where we had a miscommunication, possibly caused by her being too hot. Nel ran bigger on her outrun than I like but managed the sheep well on the lift and fetch. She had some trouble on the drive and I opted to miss the first drive rather then have her bite a sheep to force it through the panel. Both girls shed and timed out at the pen.

Amanda and Clive had a good outrun followed by trouble on the fetch resulting in a missed gate. A good drive was ruined by a difficult sheep at the shed costing shed points and ultimately causing them to time out at the pen.

Alison's Rhys had a great gather, dead straight and a nice run, just a bit too slow timing out at the shed.

Tomorrow we run the young dogs. This is hopelessly beyond my young dog's pay grade but maybe she will learn something from the event.