Hanson - MC Standard - Video/Play-by-Play
21 May 2013
Meeker and I ran this course at the USDAA North Central Regionals this past weekend. The original running order would have made it my consolation run if we didn't make it to the Grand Prix and Steeplechase finals. As it turned out I ran it as a warm up prior to running those courses. I wanted to get Meeker some more time on the contacts and surface prior to those important runs.The course was designed by veteran USDAA judge Dave Hanson and judged by Seth Dunn. This course had a number of interesting challenges and handling options. Here’s the course diagram:
The course setup was actually 10-20 ft narrower than the diagram so obstacles were closer left-to-right than shown above. Obstacle 4 was a true double spread jump and obstacle 13 was a wall jump (the second time Meeker ever saw one - another reason to warm up on this run - since both the GP/Steeplechase run featured them).
The challenges are mostly obvious from the course diagram:
- The short distance from spread jump 4 to the weaves.
- Which ways to turn the dog 6 to 7 and 7 to 8? It didn't occur to me to look at the run out plane for jump 7 when handling jump 6. Seth was (appropriately) calling faults for dogs whose wide wraps brought them past the take off side of jump 7 when the dog was turned to the right over jump 6.
- Getting the dog to the back side Handling the Quad Back Side - Patrick Bucher Course/VideoThe Connection Between Threadles and Back SidesBack Side/Back Side JumpBack Side of Jump Handling Combinations - Video of 10.
- Handling the dog coming out of 18 to avoid the off course jump 20.
Here is video running this course with Meeker. I show the run in real time and then again slowed down with a voice over describing my handling.
I was very happy with our run - it put me in good spirits for tackling the GP and Steeplechase runs later that day. It was extra nice to have one of the few qualifying runs and earn a 3rd place to top it all off!
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