The Rooky Racers will be racing at this venue on Sunday 22nd May:
Farnham Park Playing Fields, Farnham Royal, Berkshire SL2 3BP
We also have a starters team that day... if you would like to race your dog in the starters that day please let Chris know.
Feel free to turn up and see the other teams race... got some very fast teams on Sunday include one from Holland who are always amazing to watch.
As for the Racers... well... seeded 6th, so going to be hard to get into the rosettes this time round !
We are still awating times etc. for when the starters and Rooky Racers are racing.
Andy
Sunday 15 May 2011
Friday 6 May 2011
Becoming a member of the BFA
The BFA (British Flyball Association) is the governing body for Flyball in this country.
Membership allows your dog to earn Flyball points for every "open" race they run and complete in under 30 seconds, these points count towards your dog earning certificates of achievement (ask Chris or I for the full rules / details).
To be allowed in a race ring to help out or compete (apart from at starters) you need to be a BFA member... the cost is not much (£10.50 for the rest of the year as at May) and the price of the joint membership also covers additional family members.
The form can be found here ...
http://www.flyball.org.uk/official/forms/admin/membershipapp.pdf
... if your interested in competing or helping out now / in the future it is worth completing sooner rather that later as there is a 2 week period of grace where you cannot compete without being a member (so if one day you wake up and think "hey, what the heck, lets race for the first time next week" you will not be allowed... and if you did race the whole team would loose their points for that day).
Leave "Your BFA Number" blank... and enter "Rooky Racers" as the team and team number as "202".
Cheers,
Andy
Membership allows your dog to earn Flyball points for every "open" race they run and complete in under 30 seconds, these points count towards your dog earning certificates of achievement (ask Chris or I for the full rules / details).
To be allowed in a race ring to help out or compete (apart from at starters) you need to be a BFA member... the cost is not much (£10.50 for the rest of the year as at May) and the price of the joint membership also covers additional family members.
The form can be found here ...
http://www.flyball.org.uk/official/forms/admin/membershipapp.pdf
... if your interested in competing or helping out now / in the future it is worth completing sooner rather that later as there is a 2 week period of grace where you cannot compete without being a member (so if one day you wake up and think "hey, what the heck, lets race for the first time next week" you will not be allowed... and if you did race the whole team would loose their points for that day).
Leave "Your BFA Number" blank... and enter "Rooky Racers" as the team and team number as "202".
Cheers,
Andy
Wednesday 4 May 2011
Tuesday 3 May 2011
New dogs head off for a starters competition !
Penned by Andy !
On Monday 2nd May 6 brave dogs decided to take their owners out of the training ground and head off to a starters competition in Abingdon hosted by the Mad Mutts Flyball team.
The dogs and handlers were:
Holly took Sharon
Ozzie took Richard (and the Ozzie family fan club!)
Jasper took Gill
Tam took James
Panda took Sam
Chewy took Jade.
Chewy and Jade ended up running with the Active8 Flyball team as they did not have enough dogs to make up a team on the day.
So, what is a starters competition?.
It is a chance to go along to a competition aimed at dogs (and owners) new to Flyball and try out the things the Rooky Racers can’t provide you with at training and also put into practice everything learnt during training.
For example, Chris and I always talk about “lights”, “crossovers”, “judges”, but it is hard to visualise what this all means without actually going to a competition and seeing these things for real!.
You still have all the netting in place, but now have to race using some (not all) of the Flyball rules that the main “Open” team would follow.
And you are now watched by 2 judges and the lights system. (The lights tracks how fast you are and also make sure no dogs start their run to the Flyball box for their tennis ball “early”).
You also have no idea what the other teams you are racing against will be like or how fast they are… the point of starters is to learn the ropes, practice what you have learnt in training and take a step towards “Open” racing (but if you win a rosette for placing 4th or better then that is a bonus !).
So, the team turned up an hour in advance which gave them a chance to be shown the racing arena, shown the lights and talk team tactics.
The Rooky Rebounds (name of our starters team) would be racing against 5 other starter teams from the South:
Active 8
Delta
Fantastic 4
Warwickshire Mud Pack
Mad Mutts
Rules were – Rooky Rebounds run one heat against each team, each heat is 3 races; you must run all 3 races, which ever team wins the most races wins that heat.
Depending on number of heats won that determines if you are 1st, 2nd, 3rd etc. down to 6th place.
With 5 dogs it was a good chance to swap team formations in each race:
Race 1: Holly, Ozzie, Jasper, Tam
Race 2: Holly, Ozzie, Jasper, Panda
Race 3: Panda, Ozzie, Jasper, Tam
I have to say I’m very proud of how well dogs and handlers raced on the day, all the weeks of training in the run up to this made us look very slick in the arena.
Holly and Sharon got the start lights down perfectly with a few starts being within 0.03 seconds of the green GO light showing. (Feel free to ask me, Holly or Panda what this means !). And only once did Holly get a false (early) start.
Ozzie and Jasper were getting good cross overs and were not phased by running onto Holly, Panda or Tam when they went out of order.
Tam, held onto his tennis ball in every race (bar one, but he went back and got that second time round). (Woohoo… It has finally clicked for Tam !).
And Panda ran great in both first and last position… Panda was given two nicknames by other teams… one was “SuperPoo” and the other “RunnyPoo” … (no, we don’t get many Poodles in Flyball so it’s a good chance to make up silly names using the word “poo” !).
So, how did the team do?!... I am very please to say not only did they win all five heats they also won all 15 races !...putting in a fastest time of 24.55 seconds - so a fantastic result and 1st place rosettes all around :-)
If anyone else would like to have a go at a starters race please let Chris or me know, there is another in 2 weeks time near slough… we can’t guarantee 1st place, but we do promise to show you the ropes and take good care of you !.
Also, if anyone who raced on Monday has outstanding questions just shout !.
Pictures from the event will be on this link from May 8th.
http://www.doggieportraits.co.uk/
Fingers crossed Sam’s boyfriend also has some photos / videos from Monday we can share on here soon.
Andy
(PS… Chewy’s team came 5th on the day… and I am ashamed to say she let herself down by only doing the job properly 50% of the time… so its back to basics with her !).
On Monday 2nd May 6 brave dogs decided to take their owners out of the training ground and head off to a starters competition in Abingdon hosted by the Mad Mutts Flyball team.
The dogs and handlers were:
Holly took Sharon
Ozzie took Richard (and the Ozzie family fan club!)
Jasper took Gill
Tam took James
Panda took Sam
Chewy took Jade.
Chewy and Jade ended up running with the Active8 Flyball team as they did not have enough dogs to make up a team on the day.
So, what is a starters competition?.
It is a chance to go along to a competition aimed at dogs (and owners) new to Flyball and try out the things the Rooky Racers can’t provide you with at training and also put into practice everything learnt during training.
For example, Chris and I always talk about “lights”, “crossovers”, “judges”, but it is hard to visualise what this all means without actually going to a competition and seeing these things for real!.
You still have all the netting in place, but now have to race using some (not all) of the Flyball rules that the main “Open” team would follow.
And you are now watched by 2 judges and the lights system. (The lights tracks how fast you are and also make sure no dogs start their run to the Flyball box for their tennis ball “early”).
You also have no idea what the other teams you are racing against will be like or how fast they are… the point of starters is to learn the ropes, practice what you have learnt in training and take a step towards “Open” racing (but if you win a rosette for placing 4th or better then that is a bonus !).
So, the team turned up an hour in advance which gave them a chance to be shown the racing arena, shown the lights and talk team tactics.
The Rooky Rebounds (name of our starters team) would be racing against 5 other starter teams from the South:
Active 8
Delta
Fantastic 4
Warwickshire Mud Pack
Mad Mutts
Rules were – Rooky Rebounds run one heat against each team, each heat is 3 races; you must run all 3 races, which ever team wins the most races wins that heat.
Depending on number of heats won that determines if you are 1st, 2nd, 3rd etc. down to 6th place.
With 5 dogs it was a good chance to swap team formations in each race:
Race 1: Holly, Ozzie, Jasper, Tam
Race 2: Holly, Ozzie, Jasper, Panda
Race 3: Panda, Ozzie, Jasper, Tam
I have to say I’m very proud of how well dogs and handlers raced on the day, all the weeks of training in the run up to this made us look very slick in the arena.
Holly and Sharon got the start lights down perfectly with a few starts being within 0.03 seconds of the green GO light showing. (Feel free to ask me, Holly or Panda what this means !). And only once did Holly get a false (early) start.
Ozzie and Jasper were getting good cross overs and were not phased by running onto Holly, Panda or Tam when they went out of order.
Tam, held onto his tennis ball in every race (bar one, but he went back and got that second time round). (Woohoo… It has finally clicked for Tam !).
And Panda ran great in both first and last position… Panda was given two nicknames by other teams… one was “SuperPoo” and the other “RunnyPoo” … (no, we don’t get many Poodles in Flyball so it’s a good chance to make up silly names using the word “poo” !).
So, how did the team do?!... I am very please to say not only did they win all five heats they also won all 15 races !...putting in a fastest time of 24.55 seconds - so a fantastic result and 1st place rosettes all around :-)
If anyone else would like to have a go at a starters race please let Chris or me know, there is another in 2 weeks time near slough… we can’t guarantee 1st place, but we do promise to show you the ropes and take good care of you !.
Also, if anyone who raced on Monday has outstanding questions just shout !.
Pictures from the event will be on this link from May 8th.
http://www.doggieportraits.co.uk/
Fingers crossed Sam’s boyfriend also has some photos / videos from Monday we can share on here soon.
Andy
(PS… Chewy’s team came 5th on the day… and I am ashamed to say she let herself down by only doing the job properly 50% of the time… so its back to basics with her !).
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