ABC Agility Finals 2007

I really enjoy watching this semi-final. I love our collies but I also love to see all the different breeds competing successfully. What a brilliant idea of Pauline’s to start the ABC all those years ago and of course it has now progressed to one of the premier events in the UK helped no doubt that the grand final is at Olympia with all the rest of the Kennel Club finals. What a cracking top ten to take to Olympia.

Congratulations to all the top ten but in particular the winner Nigel Staines. What an absolute stunning run over one and a half seconds in front of David Leach. And what a day Nigel had, winning the championship class as well. Good luck to all the competitors at Olympia, I really hope you have a good day. Thank you to our judge Kathrin Tasker who designed a course that was suitable for all types of dog.

Judge's Report - Kathrin Tasker

As with a lot of events this season, everyone hoped for a dry semi-final and even though clouds gathered towards the evening, we were very lucky to escape the rain. The atmosphere is always great when people sit around the ring accompanied by the compulsory drink to watch and cheer on the competitors who are all hoping to get into the top 10, which means a place at Olympia.

I set a course which required some handling, some control, but most of all had quite a lot of fast, flowing places. It was really exciting to see every partnership really going for it and sometimes I just watched in awe and so hoped I did not have to put my hand up to mark any mistakes. The standard was tremendous.

My heart went out to the people who did the most fantastic rounds and had some bad luck, a pole or a missed weave entry towards the end of the course. For a short moment I did not like being a judge very much having to mark a mistake on what would otherwise probably have been a qualifying round. One such round was Amanda Cotton's with her brilliant lurcher. Always a partnership that has everyone gripping onto their seats and they so nearly did it but very sadly came to grief in the weaving poles.

Another stunning round, handled to perfection was that of Daniel Slinkert with his giant Doberman Schnauzer X. He managed to turn this large dog extremely tight, and you could have heard a pin drop as he stormed towards the finishing straight, when his dog just rolled a pole.

Dave Ray hinted that he had 15 rosettes to give out. Obviously carefully planned, there were exactly 15 clear rounds! What a great line-up!

Having seen some brilliant Malinois abroad, but not so many in this country, I had noticed David Leach’s dog at several shows and was hoping he would be in the ABC semi-final. What a great round he did to finish up in 2nd place.

From the moment he started, you could see that the Whirling Dervish of agility with his Kelpie was not going to give me any reason to put my hand up. What a stunning performance again by Nigel Staines, a great win and what a fantastic season the two of them have had.

Place	Handler	Dog	Breed	Time	Faults
1	Nigel Staines	Dragonheart Dark Destroyer AWG	Kelpie	29.191	C
2	David Leach	Bonvivant Kallisto	Malinois	30.546	C
3	James Coxon	Brynelen Joshue Jones	Australian Shepherd	31.635	C
4	Pat Spilman	Delark Vodkatini	Terveuren	32.083	C
5	Anna Braley	Up A Gum Tree	Kelpie	32.705	C
6	Mark Douglas	Dishy Scarlet Under Stars of Mars AW	Australian Shepherd	33.356	C
7	Andy Brown	Heidron Chasing Stormy Sky	Groenendael	33.835	C
8	Bridgitte Wyre	Bright Future	BSD	33.866	C
9	Cheryl Tustain	Loganberry Whinger	Lurcher	34.721	C
10	Joanne Apostolou	Sabrefield Xciting Story	Malinois	34.894	C

Finally, I would like to thank Pauline Baltes and Dave Ray for asking me to judge this prestigious event in the beautiful setting of Tatton Park, one of my favourite venues and for the beautiful piece of crystal I received.