BSD Agility World Championship 2004

4 Nov           Photos now available - click here to view BSD WC 2004 pictures

2 Nov           Results now online:  Course plans will follow (if I can work them out from the photos and videos)!

31 Oct          Mike & Jack bring the 'Bacon' home for Britain!  Finals day started slightly late with some confusion over running orders, but eventually got under way with Mike and Jack running first over a tricky agility course.  Mike controlled his nerves and his dog very well to secure a clear round just inside the course time.  As it turned out, only 7 other dogs managed clears on this course putting them in 8th place at the end.  Louise and River just had 5 faults for a missed A-frame contact and went into 15th place, whilst Alan's Jazz unfortunately got eliminated.  In the individual jumping final in the afternoon, both River and Jazz were just too fast and suffered eliminations, but Mike went into the lead briefly with a double clear (albeit with a couple of time faults) and ended up in 6th place overall.  Considering that Mike was the only Novice dog and handler combination in the final (and the oldest member of our squad - sorry Mike), this is an outstanding achievement!!!

In the team jumping final, our eliminations yesterday presented us with an almost impossible task, yet two clears within the time (from Mike & Jack and my Blitz) and just 5 faults from Niki and Cruise (in a blinding time), managed to haul team GB up one more place to beat the Germans and the Danes and give us 7th place overall!  Whilst this result may be a little disappointing to some, the agility round that caused it claimed no less than 20 eliminations (out of 36 competitors), so our 7th place was no disgrace for a team competing on a new surface, with different rules and equipment, and against some of the best dogs in the World - of all breeds!

30 Oct          Day Two - and more success! We had three clear rounds today amongst us, the first being a cracking round from Louise and River (right) - taking them into 11th place in Individual Agility (and just enough to take them into the Individual final tomorrow).  I managed 20th place with Blitz (albeit with a couple of time faults), but the run of the day was Mike and Jack (left) - who came 7th with one of only 9 clears in a seriously difficult Individual Jumping round this afternoon!  So Mike and Louise are guaranteed places tomorrow, along with the 'best of the rest' from the GB team - Alan & Jazz, with only one elimination giving them points from 3 out of 4 rounds.

The team Agility round did not go quite so well for us, but we did manage to improve slightly on our result last year:  We are currently lying 2nd to last - with only Alan & Jazz managing to avoid elimination!  Hopefully we can pull something out of the bag tomorrow and move a little higher up the results table...

29 Oct          Day One of the competition:  A brief report this evening - as we had the opportunity to train all afternoon and haven't had much time!  Our best result of the day was Anne and Copper's 12th place in an extremely difficult jumping course (pictured right - and yes, the weave entry was directly from the collapsible tunnel - not the jump!), with our only other clear round coming from Sue and Charcoal (with just 0.02 time faults).  
Unfortunately the rest of the GB squad suffered eliminations or faults as we struggled to get to grips with a totally new surface, weaves that were not pegged down, and springy contact equipment!  Hopefully our training session will have paid off and tomorrow will be better!

22 Oct 2004      World Championship changes again at the 11th hour!  OK, so a relatively minor change this time - the venue has moved by about 20 miles, the organising club has changed, and an extra jumping round in the team competition introduced!  

The squad is as ready as they will ever be - and thanks are due to Toni Dawkins and Andy Brown for running really excellent last-minute FCI rules training sessions for us all last weekend.

31 Aug 2004     WBSDS Show a success!  We do not have the totals yet, but it looks as though we will have raised somewhere between £2,500 and £3,000 over the weekend at Bath Racecourse!  Over £600 was raised from the Pay on the Day 'FCI Style' courses, and the coffers were further boosted by Minka, Stuntdogs, Michelle Griffiths and Vapresto sponsoring classes / rosettes. 

We also found time to have a short training session after the show had closed and the results look encouraging for the event in October.  We are still discussing travel plans, as the preferred arrangement of a coach for us all is still considerably outside our budget!  We will make a few more enquiries regarding sponsorship, but any offers of assistance would be very gratefully received!

4 Aug 2004       Fund-raising!  Entries have now closed for the WBSDS Agility Show, and it looks like we will raise enough money at least to get the team to Badalona and back!  However, show proceeds will probably not quite cover entry fees and accommodation for us all, so any additional offers of assistance will be very gratefully received!

Despite the numerous date and venue changes, all the original team members are still planning to travel:

1 May 2004   ...And now changed again...  Agility and Obedience events will now be in Badalona (near Barcelona) on 29-31 October!  As this is 200 miles nearer to the UK, we will expect a few more supporters:  Still by the seaside, and definitely a lot warmer than Scunthorpe, Blackpool or Littlehampton at that time of year!

13 April 2004 Dates announced for BSD World Championships:  The Agility BSD WC will be held near Castellon, Spain, on 1st -3rd October 2004.  Assuming the format is the same as in 2003, 30th September will be a practice day so the British team will be travelling on 28th-29th and returning on 4th-5th October.  It may be possible to arrange discount travel if anyone wishes to have a holiday in sunny Spain to watch us, so let me (ian@vapresto.com) know by email if you would be interested, then I can get an idea of likely numbers.

3 April 2004   Provisional date and venue for the BSD WC will be 30th September - 3 October in, or near, Valencia:  This information is not yet confirmed, so don't book your tickets yet!  I will update this page as soon as I get final confirmation.  Maybe this venue will encourage a few supporters and spectators - Valencia is on the Mediterranean coast, and I'll bet the weather will be a bit better than October in the UK!!!

Team selection finally got under way on 11th October, courtesy of Iain & Jo Fraser and all the helpers from CrazyMaesy who very kindly set up four FCI-type courses for us to try out, judged, scribed and analysed results for us.  The first agility course was quite telling - with only two dogs not being eliminated (River and Copper), but we soon adapted to the extra speed resulting from lower jumps and wider spacing and in the final round there were no eliminations.

The UK squad will be as follows:

We also have more reserves if required this year as some of the above people have other dogs with passports, so we are very confident of being able to field a full 8-dog competitive squad this time.  We will choose the 4 team dogs (from the above) when we have to submit our entries - probably in March 2004 (when we've had a bit more training), but all 8 will be able to compete as individuals anyway, if the rules are the same as this year.

We will now set about raising funds for the event, and any suggestions, offers of help (and/or money) will be greatly appreciated.  Vapresto will be happy to contact the obvious potential sponsors (dog food suppliers, etc) and would be grateful if anyone has any contacts that might increase our chances of success!

We anticipate that we will need to raise somewhere in the region of £3,000 just for the 4 UK team dogs, and anything over that will help those that are competing as individual entrants.