Cornforth

We've had a bit of a rubbish spell with agility recently. What with shows cancelled, and missing training with the appalling weather, then when I have made it to shows we've done nothing. I haven't had a place since Stanhope at the end of May - Darcey's doing some decent work but not fast enough, Freddie is more focused on what's happening outside of the ring than in, and I need to re-think things with Jasper because he loves training but I just can't get things to work in the show ring. So yesterday, I was supposed to be at Cornforth. It woke up with terrible sinus pain so stayed in bed. But by 12 I'd had a hot bath, lemsip and a good breakfast so decided to go over with just Freddie and Darcey to get some late runs in. First up was Freddie in graded 4-5 agility. Same old story - he waited fine, but did two jumps the went for a wander so E'd. But when I got him back he did some great work. Next Darcey, her agility run was in Michelle Elder's ring who we train with so added pressure! She got E'd at the second jump as she went past it then back jumped. Then did the rest of the run a bit slow, shooting glances at Michelle probably wondering why she was on the middle of the ring. By this stage I was thinking I shouldn't have bothered. I then had to take Darcey straight into her jumping, so said to a club-mate on the way past that we had no chance as D normally needs a rest between runs. It was a fairly tricky 1-4 combined course, 12 weaves, lots of flick flacks that we've not really practised, and a pull through that we haven't done before. But bless her, she ran her socks off (for Darcey), listened well and came out with a lovely clear round. And even better, 1st place! Then Freddie's second run, 3-5 combined agility. This time I did a running start and worked really hard at being super motivating and cueing early. And it worked - a clear round for the first time in ages I didn't expect to get placed with it being 3-5 combined, but guess what, we ended up 6th (out of 120). Not bad at all :-) Let's hope we've turned a corner, looking forward to Hare n Hounds summer show now.