Broken Asher and Padworth

Well it turns out I wasn't being paranoid afterall. Took Asher to Smart on Wednesday and he has got a problem with his right hind leg (same leg he injured before). At some point (I think in hindsight it was when he slipped at training back in Feb) he has damaged his gracilis muscle (inner thigh) which has healed but because of the scar tissue and it not healing in the right way it has left this muscle very tight causing a lump and it is putting a lot of strain on the tendon. This is why he has been slower at flyball as he cannot push strongly off of this leg and is struggling to control his approach to the box. All makes sense now, feel REALLY guilty that I didn't get him looked at before and also massively relieved that I didn't leave it any longer. Apparently if I had waited until the end of the season he could of been looking at a very lengthly lay off. As it is we think it will be 2-3 weeks but I think it's unlikely he'll be back doing flyball until Barbury Castle on 9-10th July. We have lots of exercises to do and I'm keeping my fingers crossed that he has made progress when we go back to Smart on Weds. His injury is very common in Whippets and Greyhounds, but our physio said they would have been hopping not walking in, just shows what a tough dog he is, Collies are their own health hazard!

So that leads me to Padworth, despite Asher not being able to run I decided to go anyway to support the team. We had all teams and all people there. Extraset and Rockets ran Saturday.

Extraset dogs (Jemma, Sonny, Smartie, Perry and Jamie) were on fire and annihilated their seed time by running 18.91secs in the 1st race. They went on to win all their races and the division. Jemma was really focused and ran 4.4s in the 1st race and quite consistent 4.5s after that. Sonny's diet and fitness work seems to really be paying off as he ran so much more consistently and had a best time of 4.52secs. Smartie wasn't quite on her usual times but still ran well as did Perry. Jamie also looked really good even managing 5.02secs which is great for him.

Rockets (Diefer, Merlin, Elliot, Bonnie, Loki) were up against some pretty tough competition in Div 2. Overall the team did really well and won 3 of their races to finish 3rd with a best time of 18.40secs. Diefer seems to be getting more confident over 12" and I think we are getting more confidence in him! Merlin was a little inconsistent and seemed quite unsettled. He didn't do anything wrong but his times were quite variable depending on how confident he was going out. Elliot had much better box turns but I think the extra distance and speed he was coming off the box with meant he thought he could run back on a single stride (we taught him to add another stride between box and 1st jump over winter) which wasn't working for him! This meant his run back was slower and he was jumping very high. We will have to put the guide in for him at the next competition. Bassetts were kind enough to let us borrow some soft balls to try Bonnie with which I think helped her but will be something we need to try a few more times to see how much difference it makes. Loki ran great hitting a few 4.2s. Unfortunately their was an incident in the afternoon that shook him up and resulted in him being reluctant to run in the last race of the day. We are hopeful that it was just a blip and he will be fine this weekend. We also hope that the owner of the other dog involved isn't too upset and will be back racing!

We had a great night Saturday. Me, Carol and Mark took advantage of the playground on site which was very fun but I am now covered in a ridiculous amount of bruises and I only remember how I got 1 of them! This meant I really wasn't with it Sunday (no change there!), probably a good job I wasn't running a dog!

After a beautiful day Saturday we were greeted by lots of rain on Sunday. Missiles and Ballistics were running. I wasn't up in time for missiles morning racing but I saw them in the afternoon and they looked good. Ruby continues to improve and I don't think it'll be too long before she's catching reliably. I think she could be a quick little height dog when she does. They won 2 of their races and finished 3rd.

Ballistics (Piper, Shani, Lacy, Luna) were 3rd seed in div 1. We weren't really too sure what to expect times wise without Asher. They gelled really well together, we decided to try lacy going 3rd as her box turns had been wide running last. Her turns did improve but I don't think she was significantly faster. Luna ran great last though so we will probably keep that order for the time being. They won both their morning races against Shooting Stars and Shooting Star Comets with a best time of 17.16secs which we were really pleased with. Unfortunately as the day went on the rain got harder and the ground more slippery so the decision was made to call off the racing before Ballistics raced again.

We're off to Basingstoke this weekend, another new venue so be interesting to see what its like. Again Asher's not running but I think I will be running Elliot!

Becketts Farm 16.85 :-D

Well we had thee most amazing day at Becketts Farm on Sunday. We had Ballistics as 2nd seed in div 1. Rockets and Extraset were in div 2 as 1st and 5th seeds respectively. Having all the usual dogs for these teams was great as it meant we had 3 teams of 5 dogs and all teams were at full strength.

Rockets were Diefer, Merlin, Elliot, Bonnie, Loki running over 12" and Extraset were Jemma, Perry, Sonny, Smartie, Jamie running over 9". Div 2 was a very hectic division to say the least. I was running Perry in Extraset but also helping out Rockets so it felt like we were barely out the ring. Was quite fun though!

Rockets were typical rockets, moments of brilliance and moments of chaos! They managed to lose their 1st race on lights, 2nd race was against Extraset which was great! Rockets really got their act together and managed to pull out a fantastic time of 18.16secs with a line-up of Diefer, Merlin, Bonnie and Loki. This is another fastest ever time for Rockets. Needless to say they beat Extraset! They continued to win the rest of their races fairly comfortably although the range of times they ran was huge! They also managed 18.44secs twice in a row in the last race of the day, more amazingly they were with a different line up for each one! We recorded splits for all the dogs although I don't think they give a true representation for this team as changes were sooo variable! Fastest times were: Diefer 4.52, Merlin 4.61, Elliot 4.53, Bonnie 4.54, Loki 4.24. This doesn't include the race against each other where I suspect faster times were run as we were too short on people to do times for that one! Despite losing 1 race they still managed to win the division!

Extraset were more consistent apart from 1 nightmare race where Sonny started dropping his ball, luckily we managed to bring it back! Jemma was fine after her incident last weekend and ran very consistently all day. The rest of the team also gelled well together and managed to win all their races except for the 1 against Rockets with a new best ever time of 19.62secs. The line-up was Jemma, Sonny, Smartie, Jamie. We have to be quite careful now with the seed time as we don't always have Jemma due to Sarahs uni stuff and Jem is the fastest dog on the team! Dogs fastest times: Jemma 4.54, Perry 5.18, Sonny 4.65, Smartie 4.58, Jamie 5.19. This meant Extraset came 2nd!

Ballistics had a team of Piper, Asher, Shani, Luna, Lacy. Asher the total muppet stole some food not long before we were due to race. I never give him breakfast before racing as he always runs considerably slower. It was a bit gutting knowing that even before we entered the ring that he wasn't going to be himself. I decided I would only run him in the 1st race as we weren't sure exactly how much he'd eaten or how long ago. As suspected he was well off his pace but seemed fine other than that. 1st race we went for a time and left Lacy out. 1st leg flowed really well and we did 16.85secs :-). As planned I left Asher out for the rest of the morning. The other 4 did great winning the next 2 races with a best time of 17.32secs. In the afternoon Asher ran the 3 remaining races. He looked alot snappier in the 1st race of the afternoon and managed some sub 4s...just! Our last race was against Bassetts, we'd won all our races up to that point but they'd managed a 16.59secs earlier on. It was a fantastic race which went to 5 legs. They won the 1st on speed, we won the 2nd on speed with a 16.98secs, 3rd we both got lights on last dog but they were able to turn around quicker, 4th and 5th they got lights which meant we won! Dogs fastest times: Piper 4.05 (PB), Asher 3.97, Shani 4.12, Luna 4.29, Lacy 4.37 (Just because I'm a nerd... this technically means we could of done 16.43secs which is very encouraging ;-)!).

We had a fantastic day, couldn't of asked for anymore. We've got a weekend off now so we're going to train our new starters (and do tiny bits with Miss Laika!) and do some boxwork particularly with the babies that have come out this year to try and maintain their turns. Got to continue the fitness work with Asheroo. I'm also thinking of taking him back to Smart to be checked over to put my mind at rest that nothing else is going on to slow him down. He will be thrilled, my bank balance will not!