Rocky Mountain Regionals - Summit earns a Steeplechase bye

The Rocky Mountain Regional competition was a blast! First, Donna and I hauled her trailer so we could stay on the site. This was my first experience doing the "RV" thing and it was so much fun to have one's house just a short walk from the rings. Second, the hosting club did an amazing job which included a free barbecue dinner for all competitors Saturday night. Third, it was so cool seeing so many competitive teams from the West coast competing, and Fourth... Summit was amazing!

Summit and I had very consistent and fast runs. I am so thrilled with our teamwork this weekend. Friday he had a clean run in Steeplechase round one and placed 4th. Saturday he had a very nice run in Grand Prix round one and placed 4th. He then followed that with a smokin' fast run in the Steeplechase Finals and placed 3rd earning him a bye into the semi-finals at Nationals. He is also fully qualified for Nationals now since he got that last GP leg. He had a pretty nice run in GP Finals but dropped the second bar and then we had a wrong course towards the end of the run (I think I had stopped handling aggressively when he dropped the bar at the beginning of the run). It was a very tough course and I'm happy with how well we did on the challenges.

We also did DAM team but did not qualify since our team had two E's. All three of us were already qualified in DAM team so only did team for fun this weekend.

Summit also earned Q's in the regular titling classes. A Snooker Q (not a super Q since we dinked around on part of the opening and the buzzer went off before we finished the #7 in the closing). A Standard Q with a second place, and a Gamblers Q with 7th place.

Jen was able to film several of our runs.



Team Standard. This was a challenging course and many teams got an elimination.



Team Jumpers. Challenging course - Summit had a nice run with one bar.



Steeplechase round one - 4th place qualifying for the Finals.



Grand Prix round one. I was being a little conservative as I wanted that last qualifier for Nationals. We placed 4th (with my holding his dogwalk contact).



Steeplechase Finals - 3rd place and bye! Very wide turn after the broad jump. Most fast dogs went very wide here. 1. handler was behind the dog 2. handler cueing extension over the broad jump and no time to decelerate to cue collection over the jump. Many dogs also missed the following jump which was at a very shallow angle and a big dog stride took them past the plane of the jump. Some handlers chose to wait and pull (basically recalling their dog back to them and then turning and cueing the jump). I walked it for both and decided to do the front cross which would ensure that Summit wouldn't miss the jump.