CPE Agility (Part 2)

On Sunday we went back to the trial and we finally had the day I had been hoping for!

We started out with Standard and had a beautiful run.  Our first Standard Q!



We actually had a bit of a blip at the beginning of this run.  We lined up and Tessa took the first jump, but then she ran around the double.  When I had her go back to re-do it, she back jumped it.  That would have been OK - you can have an off course in Standard Level 1, but on her way over it backwards, she knocked the front bar off.  I turned her around and started to go on - planning to make it a fun run when I heard the judge calling out, "Wait!  Start over!" 

Huh?  In all the years I've played CPE Agility, a judge has never stopped me and told me to start over!  I was seriously confused for a few seconds.

Turned out the double jump had been set wrong!  The bars had been straight across the top, but in CPE the front bar is lower.

WooooooHoooo!!!!  Do over!  And that is what you see in the video above!

We went on to get our first Fullhouse Q and our first Jackpot Q, which was only my second ever Jackpot Q since Maddie and I stopped doing Jackpot after our one and on Q.

But I think the highlight of the day for me was our first ever Snooker Q!  Snooker had really become a monkey on my back and it felt great to finally be successful at it with Tessa.  Yes, she did jump another tunnel - but that's not an off course!!  I did end up sending her over a jump that was not in the course as we ran it, and we did get whistled off, but by that time we had enough points to qualify!!

Our only NQ of the day was Jumpers at the end and that was just because it was hot and Tessa was done.  I actually ended the run after three jumps because I could see that it was just too much for her.

In spite of that, I considered it a perfect day!  We conquered Snooker, and we earned our first Agility title!  In a way it was significant to me that our first title was Level 1 Strategy.  That was the last Level 1 title that Maddie and I earned, and that was our one and only title in that category.  In some strange way it made this more mine and Tessa's.  We will do this a bit differently and we will make it our own.

I absolutely loved the tiny little Q ribbons!  They are absolutely adorable.

I just felt great going home that day.  I was proud of how far my girl had come.  Just a year before we hadn't even started Agility and here she had earned her first title and was just one Q away from three others!  She ran great, she had fun, and we were finally starting to find our stride.

I was sorry that it would be several months until we trialed again, but I was very much looking forward to doing so!