BevLive: Tabletop SDT, Day One

Great dog trial. Five fresh range yearlings for each handler on a very interesting, pretty 12 minute course. Got off to a rough start as there was trouble getting the first few groups spotted. But the setout crew worked through it and did a great Job the rest of the day with each packet well spotted and waiting for the handler.

I ran early with Mirk and was very pleased with him. He pushed his often contrary sheep around with good authority. His outrun was dead on and not too wide as I had feared. We had a minute at the pen and just failed to get it. Herbert ran his new Irish dog. He ran very well also running short of time at the pen. The two of us led it until lunch time when Alasdair and Star had a very good run scoring 90.5, followed by Ron Burkey and his young Star/Don son who also scored 90.5. I'm not sure which of them won but these remained the high scores. The tie was broken on outwork and I never saw the final scores.

A short time later Charlie Torre got 80.5 for third and then Shauna Gourley got 79.5 which I think was fourth.

Fly ran in the late afternoon. She had a stupid outrun requiring a stop and redirect. We missed the first drive gate, which for some reason got much harder to get in the afternoon. I was pleased with everything but the outrun. Fly showed good authority on her sheep and finished strong. Hope the outrun is better tomorrow when the outruns get bigger for the next go around. I think Fly finished 5th or 6th, somewhere in there which wasn't bad for her first time on range sheep.

Was a really fun dog trial. Great sheep as I said and a very challenging and interesting course. The wind got up in the afternoon but it didn't seem to bother the hearing. Did tire out the handlers though.