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Tony Redmond reports on the Queens Birthday weekend flyball competition at Pine Rivers, complete with video footage
The morning dawned rainy and overcast – after the comp had been cut from two days back to one it almost seemed like it was a message. Lunch time came and although the clouds didn’t go away it was a great afternoon for flyball – nice and cool for quick times and no rain!
The Fanatical Flyballers welcomed Jan McChesney (Morgan has been there all along, but Jan has been away) and Poppet/Bec back into the fold so the Canberra crew (with the addition of CK) was back together. Morgan, Tarlee, Kimba, Poppet, Xena and CK lined up against 2 teams from Pine Rivers and the Awesome Pawsome guys who have been working hard after just being beaten by our reliability (not times) in the last 2 comps.
As always all our dogs ran very well – Poppet running an amazing 6.3 seconds and being the ultra reliable dog she always is, Tarlee and Kimba ran under 5 seconds all day as they always do (these two dogs are truly awesome to watch – if you get the chance make sure you come along and watch these two – they are TRUE RACERS). Morgan was SOOOOOOOOOO pleased to have Jan back and ran faultlessly all day (but still seemed to miss Colleen just a little bit). Xena put in her usual work like display, telling Tony off whenever she was left out of the team and ending up with a PB over the low hurdles at 5.1 seconds. CK continued to improve in just his third comp – running PB’s over both the high and low hurdles at a best of 5.0 seconds – bring on the 4’s!!
The team had heaps of fun all day and ran it’s best time ever with a 20.3 second pass (CK, Tarlee, Morgan, Kimba) – a full second better than their PB from January this year!! All combinations managed to run well under 21 seconds and we’ve all vowed to put in the extra work needed to improve our passing and turns to get under that magical 20 second barrier! (Expect a few really positive changes at training in the coming weeks.)
Despite some great running from all our dogs we were just beaten by the Awesome Pawsome team on the day. All races were really close, but the AP guys have obviously been putting in a lot of work and their passes and turns were simply.... .well.... .awesome. They had the wood on us this time with a best time of 19.3 seconds, although they were gracious enough to thank us for allowing them to win.....this time. WELL DONE AP – deserved winners on the day!!
The best thing about the Flyball Fanatics is that we are a great club! There were people coming and going all day, and we were never short of box loaders (Liz always does a great job) and ball shaggers (thanks to Ashley), our statistican (Thanks Garry) and of course Rachel who did a great job captaining the team as always! Every time we turned around we were back in the ring stewarding as well.
It was great to relax after the comp with a counter meal and a few wines – we certainly livened up the locals at Warner Tavern!
The next comp is on Saturday July 26 at the Mt Gravatt Show and promises to be heaps of fun with the general public enjoying the racing. If you aren’t racing and have the chance make sure you get along and see what all the fuss is about. Training is great, but just being part of the atmosphere at a Flyball Competition is another experience all together!
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