Edgeworth

You know it's Fall when it's time for Tommy and Florence Wilson's famed Edgeworth Open trial.  This year the traditional trial field was recently seeded, so Tommy devised an equally tricky course on another portion of his beautiful central VA farm.  The outrun, though short at only 350yds, was very tricky with it's rolling terrain, and as a result, a very high percentage of dogs crossed over or ran out poorly on the first go.

Gabe was my first to run, and as he crested the first hill I gave him a security redirect to keep him out.  He took it perfectly and continued on to have a lovely outrun.  The middle part of the fetch was in a big dip, so it was blind to the handler at the post.  Gabe went in online and to my surprise emerged online!  We made the fetch panels and continued on with a nice pace.  His first leg of the drive was fine, it was that darn cross-drive where he boogered up a flank.  It took some effort to get things back together, but he was working well til he took a wrong flank at the cross-drive panel and we just missed them.  Decent return leg and onto the pen, where many teams failed to get the wily sheep in.  He was controlled and working very well for me and we managed a nice pen.  Plenty of time in the shed ring and we got a shed that I was quite happy with.  It was a respectable run score-wise and more importantly, I was really happy with his work.

 

Gabe on the first leg, Sue's cell phone pic

 

When I sent Spain, I'd already decided to give her a security redirect as well, and apparently that really blew her mind.  She took it well, but after that she was wound as tightly as could be, overflanking, running through my stops, taking wrong flanks...pretty much just plain ugliness.  I know we missed the fetch panels and I don't remember about the rest of the way around the course other than we were fighting.  She and I got our act together enough for a good pen and a poor, but accepted shed.  I can only remember one other time when she worked like that and coincidentally or not, it was when I'd given her a redirect on her outrun.  Hmm.

The second go included a dog-leg fetch followed by an interesting drive, a maltese cross (must get them all through) and pen.  Gabe ran out beautifully without the need for any security or other redirects, so I was really happy to see that.  He had trouble on the dog-leg (homework for us), and we didn't get them online til the fetch panels.  He had a good driveaway going, and yet AGAIN, messed up a flank about halfway across the cross-drive.  We got things straightened out and made the next panel and had a good flow coming to the cross.  We got them in the first chute but I'm not sure what happened and next thing I knew they'd turned and were headed down one of the cross alleys.  I had him pick them up again and we put them back through correctly this time.  He brought them nicely to the second mouth of the cross and we sent them through without much fuss.  I sent him to gather as I went to the pen, and he brought them nicely and in they went.  Woohoo!  I was SO proud of him, his at hand work was especially nice and workmanlike, we really only goofed on the dog-leg and the cross-drive.  I was quite happy with our run and again our score was probably about mid-pack.

 

Not me, just a course picture; sheep set to left, fetch gates in the middle of the picture,

drive away on the left, cross-drive out of sight to the right. Much of the fetch is actually out of sight of this pic, the terrain dips just beyond the fetch panels

 

Still not me, third drive leg to the cross, pen on the right

 

Spain ran near the end of the round at a time when the winds were coming up, which had me worried.  I sent her and kept my mouth shut as she ran out, trusting that she'd learned her lesson on the first outrun.  She did, and was nice and pliable at the top for the dog-leg.  She had her listening ears on, for sure, and did a lovely fetch straight to the fetch panels, turned, then straight to my feet.  Her sheep were a little heavy but she worked hard to push them around the course with precision.  I really didn't know where the cross-drive line was, I'd had no markers picked out since I missed the walk-through, so we just went for it and marched across the field.  Made the panels, good line to the cross.  We worked calmly and patiently to get them through, she had a nice tight turn to bring them back to the second entrance and through again.  I could feel the momentum of a good run, so I left her in a down to hold the sheep as I walked over to the pen.  She gathered them and we went on to have a slow and careful pen.  What a feeling closing that pen gate, I knew we'd had a smoking run and I was so proud of her!  Turned out that we tied for 3rd with Beverly on a 91, and though I didn't see the breakdown, we ended up 4th after the tie was broken.  What a thrilling experience!!

 

Edgeworth 2012