Lessons Learned in Rochester

Seeker and I had a lot of "take aways" last weekend up in Rochester. There were some really great things and some things that challenged us and we'll need to go back and work on. I guess this will be an on going process of finding what works, what should have worked and Oh My Gosh, 'What were YOU thinking!!!'.

Let's start with the last thing first. I made a short movie video called, Seeker's Out Takes. You know, those things that you'd really rather not have your friends see. It's very short, one involves the table. You have to watch closely, as the table is rather far away, but as he jumps on it his shoulder catches and he falls on top of it. Both Rhonda and I are now laughing, what a klutz!! Seeker's take a look around like, "What just happened?" The second part of the clip is his fall off the dog walk. Trust me, it did NOT phase he. He probably risked himself move by trying to stay on then if he would have just baled. Bless his heart for trying. I was planning on stopping to see if he was okay, (he was), but he blew right past me, took the jump and entered the weaves before I had time to say much of anything. G




His Standard run had a lot of nice things in it. I loved the start. I thought it was going to be more difficult than it was, but I wanted to front cross between 3 and 4 to set a nice turn and I had plenty of time. His start line and table were wonderful, I couldn't ask for more. Now to pick. His contact pieces were slow, not totally sure where that came from, so this week we'll work on some running through and some contacts holds with tugging in the yellow. I'll see what we get this coming weekend. We really struggle with tight turns, or wraps around the jumps. This is mostly on my shoulders as I was really late on my pre-cues for the wraps. One coming out of the tunnel, jump and back to the dog walk. The other coming over a jump and into the chute at the end. No wonder he ended up in the next county!



His jumpers run on Sunday was probably the best of the weekend. Yes, he dropped a bar, but he really ran well. Getting picking, he could have been tighter going around both speed circles, but I think that will come with practice. Something else to work on. From a handling perspective, I could have been a bit smoother with my transitions of moving and letting up. So much to learn! But it sure is fun.