At Scone Palace

It is always a great pleasure to go up to Scotland for the Highland Final. The Scottish Game Conservancy Fair at Scone Palace, Perth is a lovely, very traditional show where you can buy anything from a plastic decoy duck to a £50K pair of shotguns. Each year it just gets more and more popular. And look who's featured in the main area on Saturday, 30 June. First Dave Ray and then Judge Ian Malabar report.

The main ring is right in the middle of the show and has a good running surface with a audience for our event standing three to four deep. The atmosphere is tremendous, and as usual both the invitation and the final were extremely exciting. What can I say about the winner, Nigel Staines? Both his runs were just superb. I don’t know how we did it again but we managed to escape without any rain and I understand that the following day that certainly wasn’t the case so once more we escaped the worst of the weather!

I am indebted to our judge, Ian Mallabar, for producing courses of the highest standard and Ann McBride for organising a very sociable and hard working ring party. In fact ,they were especially sociable on the night before when we all went out for a meal! As usual, a really good night again.

Judge's Report
Having regularly attended the 'Highland' for many years both as supporter and finalist, it is without doubt one my favourite events. Therefore, when Dave Ray invited me to judge this years final, I jumped at the chance. I will take this opportunity to thank him for this privilege and for his hospitality. Coming at the end of a week that had seen several shows deluged with rain, much of the country under several feet of floodwater and poor weather forecast, many fingers were crossed. I did let slip that in all the years I had judged I had never done so in rain. Was this to be a first?

For the preliminary round I set a flowing course which would allow handlers to settle their nerves and to get a feel for the surface, which can be somewhat uneven in places. There were several very good runs on this course but a few were let down by simple mistakes due to the nerves of finals day.

The winner of this first run was Nigel Staines with his Australian Working Kelpie Zico. An impressive well controlled run in 35.52 seconds. The question on many peoples lips though was could he hold it together for the final as well? The winner of the first round at this event rarely succeeds in the final.

In previous years one has often been able to read the list of finalists and pick out likely winners, but this year? A look down the list soon showed it contained a lot of very good dogs. The 25 finalists included 11 dogs from Grade 7 and 13 from Grade 6. To do them justice a slightly more testing course was called for. I aimed to level the playing field by having tight sections for the more controlled dog but with a good fast run for the speed merchants.

At 1.15pm with the course set and a good crowd gathered. It was time to go. First to tackle the course was Morag Birse with our white dog. She showed everyone how to do it with a nice clear round.

Morag was followed by our first finalist, Wendy Wright with Frost who unfortunately couldn’t follow Morag's example, falling foul at No11. Next up was the winner of this final two years ago, Hazel Barker with Zack, an experienced dog with appearances at Crufts and Olympia to his name. He put on a good display of control but with speed as he powered down the finishing straight, leaving Hazel behind, to go clear in 39 seconds dead. Game on. We had a final, but could the time be beaten?

We didn’t wonder for long. The very next dog going round in 38.63secs was Jinx handled by Sarah Stokoe, but unfortunately he just rolled a pole on the spread at number 2.

Our next dog was handled by Louise Raine. Never one for half measures, Louise went for it with style coming home with Star in a very impressive 35.73 secs. Now we really had a competition.

There followed a series of impressive runs as handlers rose to the bait but only Dane Redford, running 7th, with Keyne tamed this course going clear in 38.37seconds. Then up to the line walked that man, Staines. Could he do the double? With a grandstand at each end of this large ring and a crowd five deep down the sides, the atmosphere was electric.

Running 11th and undoubtedly on form with ABC and two recent championship wins Nigel and Zico displayed great control in the tight sections and with a staggering home run down the long straight they were clear in 34.78secs.

It was soon obvious how impressive that round was as handler after handler threw caution to the wind in their attempt to gain that fraction of a second. None were to succeed however, and Nigel and Zico held onto first place.

Winners Louise Raine, Nigel Staines, Dane Redford (left to right)

Results

I would like to congratulate all of the finalists on a superb display of speed, handling and camaraderie. It was a joy to see. The atmosphere was great and everyone was up for the challenge. At the risk of sounding old-fashioned; agility was on display to a large public audience and you all did your sport proud. Well done.

And the rain? Not a drop!

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