USDAA weekend

We had the FRAAD/FRAC USDAA over the 4th of July weekend. Outdoors, two rings, and lots of fun at Adams Co. Fairgrounds.

The highlight of the weekend is that Summit got 2nd place in Grand Prix! And Sage also qualified in GP (10th place? I think) and finished qualifying for USDAA Nationals in all three events.

Summit had a blazing fast Steeplechase run (29.23 seconds) which would have put him in second place except..... TWO BARS! Stacy saw his run and said as he shot out of the tunnel towards the jump, he stumbled which caused the dropped bar and then the next jump was so close, he hadn't quite recovered from the stumble and so that bar came down too. Luckily he was all right. Unfortunately, don't have a video. But it was a beautiful run. The GP run was nice too. I ran him very conservatively though, didn't push for speed and made him wait on his contacts. I only wanted to ensure the Q - didn't care about the placement. So it was thrilling to see he earned 2nd place.

He had two very nice jumpers runs (one bar in each). Nice Snooker runs (one bar in the closing), and two nice Standard runs with Q's (I can't remember the placement). He had one nice Gamblers run and got the Gamble but I messed around too much in the opening and so ended up far from the Gamble line when the horn went off so we didn't make time.

Sage was only entered in the two tournaments, Gamblers, and Snooker. She had a nice, smooth GP run. One bar and one contact in Steeplechase, Q'd in Gamblers (6th place), NQ in Snooker.

She was very happy with just two runs per day and her shoulders never bothered her and she was not stiff or sore.

We had nice weather during the morning and early Noon but by 2-3pm, high wind gusts and micro-bursts. Yikes! It cooled things down nicely for the dogs but also made them wild and caused a lot of dropped bars. Summit wasn't the only dog dropping bars in the afternoon classes. In one jumpers run, just as he came around to take the second jump of a 180, a big gust of wind came up, the bar came down, and then just as he headed to the tunnel, both wings on the jump he just took blew over:-(

So now Sage is completely qualified for both AKC and USDAA Nationals. Summit only needs one more GP to finish qualifying for USDAA Nationals (AKC Nationals is not a goal for him this year).