Meeker Qualifies for Steeplechase and Grand Prix

23 Jan 2011Steve Schwarz

Meeker and I competed in the Boone County Dog Sports USDAA trial at the Dash N' Splash facility in Bartlett, IL. At the start of the weekend my goals were to chip away at the 4 legs we need to complete his ADCH and to qualify in the Grand Prix and Steeplechase rounds for Nationals. We needed 2 Gamblers, 1 Snooker Super Q, and 1 Pairs legs. I didn't get video of every run but here are the qualifiers and a couple others. Thanks to my videographers: Dana, Symantha and Linda; I really appreciate it!

The judge was Judy Reilly from New York state and I really liked her courses a lot. They were challenging but fair; there was a little of everything. I was happy to see a possibly “doable” Gamble first thing on Saturday; Meeker dropped a bar during the opening and I ended up with more time on my hands than I wanted, but we got the Gamble and qualified. We qualified in Grand Prix with a 3rd place to complete his qualification for Nationals for GP. Theresa and Dew were my partners for Pairs, Meeker self released at the start line but I recovered and we got our last Pairs leg needed for his ADCH. Then ran a good Steeplechase, with a pretty competitive field and came in second place. That wrapped up our Steeplechase qualifiers for Nationals. A really nice day and Meeker was looking comfortable, happy and pretty fast on course.

On Sunday we started with Gamblers and it was another possible Gamble, I wasn’t sure Meeker would push away from me from the teeter to a jump, but he did it as if we actually practiced such things. So that wrapped up our Qs in Gamblers and we even took 2nd place! I’ve been holding Meeker out of Standard since his injury, he has 10 Master’s Qs and I don’t want to over do it. Next up for us was Steeplechase finals, there were only 6 dogs in 22 inch present, so I thought I’d give it a whirl and see if we could win a little money… I was slow to get in position when Meeker came blasting out of a short tunnel and he came past the jump. I was able to push him to the Back Side Handling the Quad Back Side - Patrick Bucher Course/Video The Connection Between Threadles and Back Sides Back Side/Back Side Jump Back Side of Jump Handling Combinations - Video of the jump and continued. My handling wasn’t quite what it should have been but he qualified and we ended up in 3rd place: winners of $13!

So now the pressure was on; if I could get a Snooker Super Q we’d have his ADCH. That would also mean we’d have gone 7/7 Qs too. Well I got the first seven and our 2nd red and I didn’t really sell the Jump Wrap Jump Wrap Handling - With Video Jump Wrap Handling Tips Jump Wrap/Wrap to pull Meeker between the red and the finish jump and he took the finish jump to end our run. It was the kind of jump wrap drill we’ve done 100s of times… Oh well. We’ll do better next time.

So now Meeker “only” needs a Snooker Super Q to earn his ADCH and we need a Team Q to qualify for Nationals. A really great weekend!

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Meeker Qualifies for Steeplechase and Grand Prix

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