Embracing our Forever Class! Along with Geoff and one of his Papillons. 🙂
It’s been ten months since trials started back up. Here and there, covid style. We ran Open jumpers and standard at that first trial Two trials, back-to-back, all in three hours one morning. Lots of runs in a short time, but WOW. Loved not sitting around at a trial, all day long, two days in a row. …like back in the Old Days. That morning Zopa earned her OAJ title. Which, no matter how various trials were covid-style arranged, meant we’d be sitting out in the parking lot in order to run both Open standard and Excellent jumpers. Ugh.
In order to come and go, rather than park and wait, I began entering one run a day. Focused on getting that last Q in Open standard, that’s the class I initially entered. Sometimes those runs were in the morning. Sometimes they were mid-afternoon. I really like running in the morning and having the rest of the day free. A light bulb went off! The running order is usually posted in the premium. Sometimes Ex/Masters jumpers runs first thing in the morning. Gonna switch up my strategy and enter which ever class runs first.
I love running jumpers. We’ve ran it twice ??? since last August. On Fridays when Excellent/Masters only were eligible to run. We nailed it both times. One more Q and we’ll be running Masters. I’m way more comfortable running jumpers, surely thanks to the Novice Queen Supreme quest with Edie. Years ago someone said jumpers tests one’s handling skills while standard tests one’s training skills.
This run has moments of brilliance. And moments of not-so brilliant. Like my handling choice from the teeter down the finish line. Awk!!! I should have gone with my initial idea to run that line all the way with her on my right side. My dog is consistently running fast. Super fun!! But really screws up my timing. Front cross was waaaaaaay too late. Slomo shows she was focused on the a-frame from takeoff at #2. Had I noted that possibility, I would have stayed super connected and used “Z, Z, Z” to help her away from obstacle focus. Happy enough with her table performance…much improvement. She remained focused, but sticky to leave. Not sure if the shake-off was due to the judge’s presence or Zopa’s wrong course.
Down The Quiet Path 