A culinary Agility
treat...
 Last
May, 19 year old Megan Burns and her mum took the short boat trip from
Guernsey over to the neighbouring island of Jersey for the annual Jersey
European Agility Festival. She had been there twice before and was looking
forward to the 2015 show. This year did not disappoint.
Great
agility plus beautiful
beaches, superb food and fascinating attractions made for a perfect show.
Here is a brief overview of
each day and her thoughts.
I love
the Jersey European Agility Festival for the agility.
Run over four days
under FCCI Agility regulations at the Jersey Accommodation Centre, each day is
dedicated to different nation and has a country theme with a judge from that
country, complimentary drinks at the prize giving and an evening meal at
Barney's Restaurant.
Personally I
find the standard of agility to be higher at the Festival than
most other shows I attend. With there only being two grades, you can compete
against some Grade 7 (Championship) dogs and, although this may put some people off,
the courses mean that everyone is challenged so it is really an equal footing
and goes down to how well your dog is trained.
I
also enjoy seeing the difference in really competitive breeds that there are in
Europe compared to in Britain. Obviously, there are still the Border Collies,
Shelties, Spaniels etc. but there are a greater number of Staffies, Poodles,
Belgian Shepherds, GSDs and even a couple of Pugs last year. It definitely makes
for different competition, as well as seeing the differences within the breeds
in Britain compared to Europe which really intrigues me.
Inside the accommodation centre, there is a vast array of food on offer
throughout the day. Breakfasts for the guests start before the show, giving
plenty of time to eat, sort the dogs out then walk courses without being frantic
- unless you fancy a lay in! Lunches offer soups, sandwiches, cakes, burgers,
chips, hot drinks, cold drinks etc etc. Lots to choose from, all made to order,
with a quick service. What more could you ask for?
Finally, as I have mentioned, there is a different theme each day.
When it comes to presentation time, there are complimentary alcohol beverages
fitting with the day, whilst the rosettes are being presented. This is then
followed - if you choose whilst entering - a themed dinner of main course and
pudding. The portion sizes are great, the food is delicious and with everyone
discussing agility (or not), drinking and having a fabulous time, it's a great
way to round off each day.
Day 1
Friday was Jersey Day which acts as a warm up to the following days with a few
fun classes. The Knock-out challenges and Tunnel Exchange classes continued into
the evening when competitors could pay a small amount for a two course meal
linked to that nation. The food on Jersey Day was fish pie followed by sticky
toffee pudding and Jersey ice cream. The judge was Anita Le Masurier.
 Day
2
The second day was French Day with main judge being Pascale Crespel. There
are two Agility rounds and two Jumping rounds, one of which was a Pairs round of
Large and then Small / Medium. The show only has two rings, and runs all day,
finishing at about 5pm. This allows for the competitors to spectate around the
rings and there is plenty of encouragement and lots of people chatting all the
time.
One thing that
makes this show different is that at the end of each day everyone brings their
chairs around the Secretary’s tent where they do all of the presentations and
everyone has a complimentary drink linked to the nation in their hand. For the
French Day, this was either red or white wine.
The evening
meal was confit duck leg with mash and orange sauce followed by profiteroles and
the famous Profiterole Challenge where two members from each nation go
head-to-head to eat a bowl full of profiteroles the quickest - without hands!
Always a great laugh!
Day 3
The third day was British Day with judges Jane James, Graham
and Pat
Partridge. Again, there were two Agility and two Jumping rounds - one of the
Jumping rounds being a Nations Team round where three Small / Medium dogs or
three Large dogs from the same nation compete in a relay. The best get selected
for the final held on the Monday.
The
presentation was completed by a glass of Pimms and dinner was a full roast
followed by brownie and ice cream. It has to be said that the meals were
delicious and great portions for the amount you pay!
I have to say
that I certainly feel more in my element when I see a British judge standing in
the ring with British courses but trying the European courses is a great
opportunity. On the odd occasion that I have seen a course plan, if there were
no numbers it would be impossible to tell the course! This, I feel, really
distinguishes European judges from British judges where you can almost guess the
route without numbers being laid. The courses also flow a lot more, with wider
spaces, flowing angles and although there are definitely areas that need
handling and occasionally have a "back side jump" it all works really nicely and
there was not a course that I felt "Gosh, my dog and I are going to struggle
here".
 Day
4
The final day Monday was Spanish Day with Jordi Narvarro judging. There are
qualifying runs on the two previous days for Small and Medium and then for Grade
A (equivalent to Grade 1-3) and Grade B (equivalent of Grade 4-7) in Large along
with the Nations Team Final. The results of the qualifying classes are allocated
points and the dogs with the highest number of points make the final. There was
one agility, one jumping and a Helter Skelter run before the finals took place.
Unfortunately,
it rained nearly all day on Monday, but the spirits weren’t dampened as everyone
sat and watched the finals and stayed for the presentations and the raffle in
aid of Jersey Hospice.
Over the last
festival, Pickle and I won a class (A&B Jumping), got two thirds and a clear
round. This allowed us to compete in the final on the Monday afternoon. Unfortunately,
PIckle slipped in the final and landed on a pole costing us 5 faults.
My
mum, despite accompanying me to the vast majority of the shows that I go to,
does not compete. She has recently got herself her own puppy who will be
competing next year and the festival in 2017 may be their debut!
All in all,
JEAF is a great event. The attention to detail from the organisers Andre Rees,
Chris Cullen and Sally Rees was awesome, the running of the event was smooth,
even though there are different languages, everyone makes new friends whether
they are from Jersey, Guernsey, Great Britain, France, Spain, Germany, Belgium,
Finland, Austria, Netherlands or even the USA. If you’re lucky, you might get to
win a Jersey teddy (1st place prize) and even if you don’t win a teddy, you’ll
get some lovely memories.
This year, there has
been a change to the schedule to include a Guernsey Day. I think this is the
first time this has ever happened and I have been lucky enough to be asked to
judge! This is a great opportunity for me to expand my judging repertoire as
well as make a stamp as to what a Guernsey course could be! I'm very much
looking forward to it. I will then be competing for the other three days of the
festival and am flying to Jersey especially for the event from university.
 About
the author...
Megan Burns
lives in
Guernsey but studies Advertising at Bournemouth University.
She has been competing
in agility for five years now with my working cocker x poodle Pickle who
currently competes at Grade 5 (KC). He's her first agility dog and they've been
on such a journey due to the lack of
agility trainers on Guernsey. They are practically self-taught and relied upon
travelling occasionally to the Mainland to gain knowledge. Now, although competing at relatively few numbers of
shows a year, they've won out of G1 - G4 in the first show they entered at each
grade.
Despite being at
university, she still like to keep her toes dipped in agility by creating
promotional work for clients within the agility world whether it is logos,
posters, videos, Facebook pages/groups or total rebrands and have recently
branched
into selling digital drawings of people's dogs. When she has a free weekend, she
judges at independent shows or meets up with friends for training until the
spring comes around and she can train and compete her own dog and help her mum
train hers.
First published 19 February
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