Thread: Pointer and Setter Trials

A good day out today at Parakai for the Auckland Regions GSP clubs QC trial .Hats off to again to Gail Blankely who puts in a huge effort to make these trials happen and Mac McArthur who comes all the way from Otrahonga often to make sure we have a top judge casting his eye over the dogs -many thanks !!!
We ran around 8-9 dogs to day from Auckland , Tauranga and near Tauramanui .
Having never been at this course it was good to see the general layout of the land -flat with fair cover although the grass certainly was suffering the ill effects of the summer season . We picked a field to trial on which was less lumpy than the one we eventually had to use .

As I was about to go through a electric fence which Alan from the Gsp club was undoing ,the farmer turned up and didn't appear to happy - the judge had set up on his hay paddock .... all of about 8 inches if that of grass on it and to boot the fence we were undoing wasn't hot and that really pissed him off as some of the tenants had played with the on and off switches somewhere around the property lol ... still with out our good farmers we have no where to run so thanks farmer !!

After we reset the course and things calmed down a 2 bird course was set for the QC trial .A reasonably strong check wind was blowing and the sun was blasting so thank goodness it was a fairly short course .
I hadnt walked behind as the marker for a while so took the opportunity to help out and watch a few dogs run .A few of the dogs worked the land well but failed on the bird front with running in or not being steady or failing to indicate when they should have .
The ones that did get through put on a good performance with strong running and excellent bird handling .
Funnily enough my dog Inti has never had his QC so I decided to run him for a bit of start of the season practice which was well rewarded with a second place with a score of 89 or so .Rob Meridith from Tauranga arrived with his young Gordon setter which is a great looking dog and built for speed for sure . Rob took a third place with his Gordon and was very happy at the way she performed . When I turned out my young Irish import Failte for a run before the trial stated I though oh no im not going to have a good one today !!! but was pleasantly surprised with some reasonable running -not as quick as normal or as animated but good --her pointing and steadiness around the bird though was sublime .With both bird Failte had great finds and rock hard point, and when the bird took to wing she sat motionless --over the moon at the steadiness she displayed today .Failte won the day beating her mate Inti with a 90 point score from 100 .

All in all a great day and thanks to all that turned up to support the event