Rural Hill SDT

Second weekend of November was the annual Rural Hill trial held in conjunction with a fall festival at a heritage farm.  It was sort of a "meh" trial for me...I hadn't worked Rae in maybe 2 weeks, I was up early the first run and did a bang up job of arriving 2 runs before mine.  And it was cold.  I hadn't really collected my thoughts before the run and it showed in my poor handling.  Rae was a little funny at the top, I think there was some weirdness going on with the set out.  They used 3 horses and no dogs for broke katahdins who have been set on just grain in the past.  Rae sliced the top of her OR and lifted crookedly, we got it back together and I think made all our panels, split and pen.  I do remember giving her a few wrong whistles, just wasn't focused, I guess.  Minus the sloppy start, our lines were good and the run was pretty decent.

Waiting for the horses to get in position

 At the pen; chilly

I left after my run to stop by a friend's to work Livy for a couple hours.  Returned the next morning to run in the 25ish slot.  Rae and I were sitting in a chair right next to the field entrance when some spectator walked right up to her, grabbed his toddler's hand and started trying to pet her.  Not that Rae would do anything, but I was shocked at the poor judgement on this man's part.  I get so aggravated by stupidity.  I have to deal with enough ill-behaved dogs and their irresponsible owners every day, I don't want to deal with that on my "fun" weekends.  Anyway, I was casually sitting around chatting instead of thinking about my run, and was feeling a head cold brewing...so again with the non-cerebral handling.  She ran out fine this time and we had a really nice go until the sheep decided to run the cross-drive.  Got them settled in the ring and thankfully Rae knows the task, because I was fumbling around in a mental fog, asking wrong flanks, not being able to figure out how to regather after the split, just generally not with it out there.  But we did pen to finish the course and the weekend.  Both runs were just so-so, and I don't know what our scores or places ended up, but I'd say middle of the pack or so.

Good flow coming to the post

Rae pushing them into the pen

The big news of the weekend was that Gabe had a successful day in PN.  Christine ran him for me and while I was sad not to see it, I eagerly awaited the text updates while I was at work.  His first run was a little sloppy due to his enthusiasm, but he got around and ended up 2nd.  His second run was apparently quite nice and the Baby got his first win!  I was suprised he was able to hold it together as these sheep were so light and prone to running, but he did it!  Of course, Christine is a much better handler than I, so that didn't hurt.

Rural Hill marked the end of the trialing season.  Since then, Rae has been enjoying some time off and Gabe and Livy have been a major focus.  Not sure that I'll be trialing much this winter, instead looking to get lots of good work in with the youngsters.

Photos courtesy of C. Koval