Bracknell January 2014 Movers and Shakers

Points are up !...

Future shakers:

Alfie is on 9355 and in touching distance of his Silver Award :-)
Mist is on 2580 and in licking distance of Flyball Dog Graduate (in fact, Mist got 405 points at Bracknell, her most ever at a competition !).
Jace is on 2815 and in sniffing distance of Flyball Dog Graduate

Movers !...

Yes, we have a mover!, well done Radley for getting Flyball Dog Graduate, good going :-)

Special mention...

Well done Breagh on getting your first open points... 70 is a great start.

Acremead in April next !

Andy

Easipetcare discount for 2014

Just to let you know Easipetcare in Woodley, Reading, will kindly be offering 10% off your final vet bill again this year.

http://www.easipetcare.com/reading/

A small change from last year is that you must bring your BFA card along to claim your discount.

Andy

2014 Flyball box upgrade

 

At the start of 2012 we were the first team in the UK to start using the Jeroen De Keyser Mk2 Flyball box from Belgium.

And new for 2014 we will be upgrading one of our boxes to test the Jeroen De Keyser 2014 thruster design.

To quote Jeroen

“The 2014-model will contain ultra-compact linear mechanisms which will react faster and lighter than the previous ones.  Due to the compactness they will be more precise and so more reliable.  The mechanism will be housed in a PUR-body”

So, keep an eye out at training… if your dog starts missing the ball you will know they are on the upgraded faster box lol.

Andy

Bob and Lush discount for 2014

 

Bob and Lush http://www.bobandlush.com/ offer for 2014.

Please speak to me at training, or drop me an email, if you are interested.

1) Try any product for half price, or

2) Order a 7.5Kg adult dry food bag* for £18

http://www.bobandlush.com/dog-food-compare/

3) If you want to continue to use Bob and Lush you will be given a unique code that will give you 33% off every future order with Bob and Lush.  This is yours to use whenever, so you don’t need to make future orders through me

4) If you leave the Rooky Racers, Bob and Lush reserve the right to revoke your discount code

(* If your dog does not like the dry dog food I will buy back any left over food for £2 a Kg).

Andy

(NB, I am a dry dog food bore, so happy to talk about how to choose a good dry food, best and worst dry dog food, and best place to buy… for RAW / BARF Chris is your man, he has freezers full of the stuff !)

Calendar for 2014

The google calendar on the website http://rookyracers.co.uk/calendar.html has been updated to show the competitions we will enter in 2014, I have also included where there will be starters racing (lots of competitions add starters racing at the last minute, so I have only shown those where I know for certain there will be starters racing).

There are only 8 further competitions we will be entering this year, as Chris mentioned in his last email this is because of feed back that there were too many competitions last year, it was hard to keep track of when we were racing, and it was hard to decide which competition to enter if there was a choice of four in one month.

Hopefully with only one competition a month we will get a lot more people turning up, which means more teams to enter, and makes things much more social.  (For new team members, there is the chance to camp over at most competitions and make a weekend of it !).

Acremead (includes starters racing) April 12/13

Basingstoke (includes starters racing) May 17/18

Apps Court Farm June 14/15

Mapledurham July 12/13

Fairview Farm August 2/3

BFA Championships August 15/16/17

Padworth (Theale) September 6/7

Apps Court Farm October 11/12

(Full venue address details can be found if you click on the google calendar entry).

Provisional dates for starters training have also been put up.  After the bad weather last year, and the year before, we have decided to push training back from early March to late April.  It also looks like we will only offer a single starters course this year; we only have a couple of spaces left, so if you are considering trying Flyball with your dog let Chris know asap.

The switch to, and from, Saturday and Monday evening training is also shown on the google calendar.

Hopefully the website will be updated soon for 2014, unfortunately the hard drive containing the website code has failed and lost all the source code, and we cannot easily make changes without it... so might take a while!.

Any questions let me know !,

Andy

Stats, more stats and damn lies !

Okay,

I have a spread sheet of data from Bracknell giving various information about how all the dogs (and handlers!) got on last Saturday.

This is just a bit of fun, remember lots of people were running different dogs, dogs were in teams with dogs they had not raced with before, different jump heights, different dog orders etc. etc. so don't read too much into my stats*
 (* these stats have not been checked, and will most likely be completely fictitious lol !)

I don't remember the running order for the dogs in Raiders, but if you do remember let me know and I can get any of the following added: CJ, Harry, Breagh, Freya, Milly.

So... onto these stats !.

Fastest dog - Single Race (fastest one off time to the box and back)

1) Mist - 4.39
2) Darcy - 4.40
3) Jace - 4.53
4) Lacey - 4.68
5) Alfie - 4.71
6) Summer - 4.93
7) Ruby - 5.05
8) Radley - 5.09

Consistent dog - All races, average time

1) Darcy - 4.55
2) Jace - 4.64
3) Mist - 4.70
4) Lacey - 4.80
5) Alfie - 4.92
6) Summer - 5.20
7) Ruby - 5.31
8) Radley - 5.32

Stamina dog - Time difference between the first race of the day and last race of the day

(Racers ran 23 races and Rascals ran 14 races, hence the big difference !)

1) Radley - 0.03
2) Ruby - 0.04
2) Jace - 0.04
4) Lacey - 0.09
5) Darcy - 0.12
6) Mist - 0.32
7) Alfie - 0.35
8) Summer - 0.46

Most fault lights (!)

1) Nigel and Alfie - 5
2) Jan and Darcy - 2
2) Jan and Ruby - 2
2) Sandra and Jace - 2
2) Julie and Radley - 2
6) Diana and Summer - 1

Most perfect cross overs

1) Nigel and Alfie - 7
2) Jan and Darcy - 5
3) Sandra and Jace - 4
3) Julie and Radley - 4
5) Suzie and Mist - 2
5) Jan and Ruby - 2

How close to a rolling start

1) Diana and Summer - 0.02
2) Shannon and Lacey - 0.06

Average cross over gap - excluding lights and HUGE gaps .... *ahem* 4.61 seconds Sandra and Jace :-)

1) Summer - 0.15
1) Alfie - 0.15
3) Lacey - 0.16
4) Radley - 0.27
5) Darcy - 0.30
6) Jace - 0.32
7) Ruby - 0.42
8) Mist 0.45

If you want any other stats let me know !, and as I said, just a bit of fun :-)

Andy

2014 Competition Dates

Will be confirmed in the next few days.

Chris and I have taken on board all your comments, and this year we will only be attending one competition a month, so no "Flyball burn out" and more weekends free to do non Flyball things !.

First competition will be the weekend of April 12th & 13th.  There will also be starters at this venue (Acremead).

Andy