Having pulled out of Knebworth, we had a few more dogs (and handlers!) to take to Brentwood. Hilary and Rachel came for the day on Sunday, whilst the rest of us camped.
Saturday, was a busy day. But luckily as we only had one team - Allsorts (Eddie, Badger, Ben, Abby, Monty & Rosie), and helped in one Div, therefore we had plenty of time to ourselves. Having submitted a seed time of 21.00 secs, we were given our seed time of 20.06 and ended up in Div 3. In our first race we had to jump 13", as the people on the gate wouldn't let Jan in without her pass, which meant dogs and running orders all had to be changed! All the dogs coped and ran well, considering how disorganised it all seemed! So we lost to Maple Leaf Raggers with a respectable time of 21.69. Our next two races we again lost to both the PODantics and Shooting Stars. The first of the afternoon racing saw us on the blue lane (Ed's worst!), so here Ed now goes first (in the hope that the 'fast collie' on the opposition has done the box and gone before Ed has made his turn - Dave's idea - and so far it has worked well!). The down side to this, is that Ed is slightly slower on the return, but better that than him 'interferring' and having to re-run……….and the long and short of it all, we lost to Trying 4 Mutts. And finally our last race, Barkshire Bandidos, we lost! Our best time of the day was 21.59.
On Sunday we had multibreed, but were unable to borrow Bella. So the team was Eddie, Badger, Breeze, Daisy, Monty & Ben. It appears that quite a few multibreed teams are made up from various teams, and so can be slightly unreliable (take the results from Thame!), so we were able to be slightly tactical in which dogs we chose for which race. Our first 3 races were on the blue lane (Ed first) and the first of those, we had no opposition, so no probs there, just a nice introduction to the days racing. We raced our 'slowest' 4, and our best time was 24.18. Our next race was against the Multi Stars ('fastest' team), so we put in our 'fastest 4'. Unfortunately being on the blue lane, we had Ed first, and the opposition had a hairy slow GSD first! We held 2 of our starts, just in case, and then decided to let Ed go properly. Unfortunately we got a light and had to run a 5th dog, so loosing that race. We predict our fastest time would have been 21.??. We then went on to win our next 4 races 3-0. Our fastest time of the day was 22.55, and we came 2nd in Div 2.
And finally, late in the day, and in the pouring rain, Ollie and Rosie paired up with 2 Maple Leaf Border Terriers, and entered the starters team. They both ran well, and the team came 4th.