Scandal was a little star for me at UKA. We had qualified for the Beginners Steeplechase back in March. The Finals were held at the Hand Stadium where they held the WAO in May 2011.
It felt a bit weird doing a 'show' in December. But it wasn't so bad as the venue was only 35 minutes from my house :-) so although we had to be there early for the check in and warm up run, I didn't leave the house until 6.20, so not actually too early.
We had a warm up run first, a lovely spread out course, nice and flowing. Ahhh it is SO nice to do a flowing course again! Scandal went clear in this, she was a bit scrabbly on the flooring the first half, having not run on 'non-grass' surfaces very often, however adjusted half way round and seemed to cope much better.
Then the semi final, we ran about 12th, there were 20 in each height of the semi. To get to the final you needed to be in the top 10 in each height. Scandal did a lovely clear and won it :-)
This meant she ran last in the Final, this course was a bit more trappy than the semi, two sets of boxes that the dog needed to go through rather than diagonal. I have worked hard at getting Scandal to do this and it seems to have paid off... I know at least 3 of the 10 got E'd on one of those boxes. Scandal worked the course beautifully, went clear, and WON the final :-D what a clever cookie.
Thank you to Bernadette for taking this pic of us :-D
My main aim of doing this show was to be in a competitive environment before Olympia, work a big course, and enjoy the excitement and pressure, rather than nervous which worries Scandal. I'd also set myself a goal of getting to the final and then getting a top 3 place... so we achieved everything I set out to... very happy :-)
1 comment:
Congratulations!
Now I'm curious about Olympia! :)
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