Having entered 3 teams, in the hope we would have enough dogs, I found I had miscalculated! So Bassett Allsorts was made up of Molly, Monty, Abby and Spencer (and Rosie 'played' in the warm up), and raced in Div 3 on Saturday. I had to run Spencer for Dave, whilst he ran Molly for Chris, who was away!! But luckily, all this didn't seem to matter! We won the first race easily, 3-1 against the Northern Bytes. We had a bit more of a struggle against the Podlers, but managed to pull it off 3-2. Then, TVR, who were running approx. 0.01 faster than us (on fastest times) so it was going to be close. We had a flyer so narrowly lost 3-2. But passes had to be pushed! Lastly, we beat Nuneaton Dodgers 3-1. This meant (you've guessed it!), we had a 3 way run off. Ann from the Wolf Pack kindly offered to watch our passes in the run off, and on the occasion we were as spot on as we could be, the electronics didn't record a time for us. This was a shame as it was possibly our best time in the run off. This didn't achieve anything, as we all won one race, so it was decided on fastest time. So with a best overall time of 20.09, we came 2nd in Div 3. It was the best racing we've had for a while.
Sunday was Bassett Hotdogs and Bassett Doggy Mixtures in Div's 2 and 5. So we had Herbie, Bazil, Barley, Breeze and Maskell (who shared the racing) in the Hotdogs. All the dogs ran extremely well, with Sally and Claire having to adjust their passes because the other dogs are a little slower than Abby and Spencer! We only won the one race, against Mad 4 Mutts, but had some close racing through-out the Division. We came 5th in Div 2, with a best time of 19.91.
And so onto the Bassett Doggy Mixtures. We had Badger, Paris, Snip, Daisy and Fudge, with Dusty on stand by, in case of emergency! We lost all our races, but it was close between the Bristol Ball-istic Scuds and us. We had no chance when the winners were putting up times of 20.?? and 2nd and 3rd places were in the 21's. But an enjoyable day was had by all.
It was nice to see our 'almost original' handlers back together again. And in true old-fashioned team spirit, they joined in with both teams, helping with jumps, retrieving loose balls etc. It certainly helps the handlers if you don't have to worry about loose balls, and telling the line judges which dogs you're running, particularly when you change them in mid racing.