Andy's farewell

Although we will send him off at the last October training session, we
are also going to have a send-off at a Comedy Cellar show on Friday 24th
October at 8pm (drinks beforehand)

Tickets are £12 and I need to book them in advance. I will pay upfront
and will need yours by the end of this month please :- )

http://www.southhillpark.org.uk/15489/shows/the-comedy-cellar.html

Please let me know if you wish to go. I know a good number who do, so
should be well attended.

NOTE - I have been to one of these shows before and it is NOT suitable
for children  ;-)   Sorry.

Have a go Flyball at Desborough Park, Maidenhead, Saturday 30th

If you fancy something to do this Saturday feel free to come along and help me run a "have a go at Flyball" at this small show :-)

Plenty of things to do by the look of things, and the organisers are after guest judges for the doggy talent show if you are feeling brave !

Let me know,

Cheers,

Andy

http://www.rbwm.gov.uk/web/parks_desborough_park.htm

Flyball Fever Challenge

Val, Chris, Jan and Shannon took part in this trial of American format racing with dogs Harry, Lacey, Ruby, Freya and Breagh. We came 1st place on the Saturday!

Our 20.5 team ran on Saturday and were running faster than their normal seed. Fastest time was 19.77. Most of the heats we ran under 20. Our dogs would normally run slower in the afternoon on grass. Saturday afternoon , every single heat was faster than the morning times - we got consistently faster thru the day. Each of the 4 dogs was as fresh for race 5 as they were for race 1. From a pure dog perspective - they ran better and faster in this format. The Flyball Geek website was an enormous bonus and we were able to easily track when we were due to race. (Though my smartphone had a glitch on Sunday and we were a few mins late). 3 of the dogs from Saturday also ran on Sunday with the same seed time and they maintained their time of sub 20 secs with a slower 4th dog and consistently so. Kristian and Katie and the High Flyers did a great job. Our team had a great weekend and would like to thank Wuff n Ready on Saturday for box loading for us, and Time Flyz for box loading for us on Sunday and High Flyers for ball collecting. Would do it again and would recommend anyone who didn't try it, to give it a go next time and have an open mind.

Movers and Shakers... Basingstoke...

Well, the weather was good for us in Basingstoke, great venue (despite the thieving gypsies !) ... only one mover and one shaker (lots of dogs in "no mans land" still).

Shaker...

Freya hits 955 points... and is guaranteed her Flyball dog  award after Englefield ... nice work Freya :-)

Mover...

This is a special mover for the Rooky Racers, Alfie has been with us from (almost) the start, and  on May 8th 2010 left a successful starters team, that won at Imber Court, to go open... and what an opening points haul... 225!... in context, no other dog has ever had such a large points haul on their first outing!.

Over the next 4 years Alfie has been through the good times (400 &405 points in one day) and the bad times (let down by other dogs racing who had not renewed their BFA membership, so lost 6 months worth of points).

Other good days = being in the winning team at the BFA UK Championships for two years in a row (very impressive !).

Alfie is a "home grown" Rooky dog; never raced for another team.... this makes the 3rd Silver Flyball Award of the team all that more special :-)  Nice work Alfie, Nigel and Diane, our first home grown Silver Award*.

* At Englefield we were asked "who did Ruby, Lacey, CJ and Radley race with before the Rooky Racers"?... they were genuinely surprised to know they were home grown...  just like every other dog on the team :-)

Andy

Champs 2014, please read

Chris will soon be emailing the team to find out who can make the British Championships this year:

Catton Hall, Walton upon Trent, Derbyshire DE12 8LN  - 3 days starting Friday August 15th

But there is only one more chance for us to set seed times and get Championship teams and dogs running together, and this is at:

Mapledurham House, Reading, Berkshire RG4 7TR - 2 days starting Saturday July 12th

So please, check your diary's, and keep these dates free if you want to race at the Championships.

Cheers all,

Andy

June - Starters competition

Just a heads up, we have asked to enter a starters team at Imber Court on the weekend of June 21st & 22nd.

Any of our current starter dogs in training who decide to stay on after their 6 weeks are more than welcome to come along, see what racing is all about, and even enter your dog (if training is going well :-)   ).

1 dog entered already.... 5 spaces left... let me know.

Andy

June racing... another update

Okay, today I received confirmation that we have not got into Apps Court in June, so switching to plan B and  Imber Court, East Molesey, Surrey KT8 0BT on June 21st and 22nd.

If you want to add your dog to this list of dogs who are going let me know:

Chewy

Mist

Bruiser

Alfie

Tess (Sat only)

Paddy (Sun only)

Summer

Radley (Sun only)

Chris & Vals dogs

There will be starters racing, but so far only Amber is on the starters list

Sorry for the messing about been a rubbish week sorting comps :-(

Andy