Hinckley Show

We haven't done this show in years and definitely not since it has been at its new (ish) venue for the last few years, but we had the following week off work as one of our holidays, which was up near to Stratford upon Avon, and so this agility show beforehand was only about an hour away.

Thanks to the crappy motorways showing traffic red spots - typical on a Friday evening, we decided to get an early night, and leave stupidly early on the Saturday morning - which was the perfect solution as we had a clear journey up.  It also helped that camping is allocated which is a great idea and I think more shows should take it on, you can still camp with friends as long as you book that when you enter the show, but it means people who have to work or travel further, still have the same opportunity as early birds to get a sensible camping spot!!

Hinckley is quitet a small show, it is only five rings and mainly for grades 3 and above, but has lots of qualifiers and championship classes so most rings are exciting to watch.  Even better the champ final isn't held until all the rings are finished so it makes it more of an event - which it should be.

It was only Kiah running at the show - good for Alex as it meant he could get a nap in on Saturday after towing up that morning - better for Davy as he really is the sort of dog that doesn't mind if he misses the shows and just gets the odd walk here and there!!  I was so SO pleased with Kiah, she barely had any poles down, wasn't too loopy, and there were a couple of really spread out but challenging courses that my handling just let us down on, typical.

I really liked the courses that were set - clever, tricky and requiring enough handling to be clever, some slightly european style sections, so the dog still gets to enjoy themselves, but not so nasty that they end up turning you round and round never to be seen again!!  I think it takes a good judge to set courses like that, well thought out and very enjoyable.  The Olympia qualifier course set by Simon Peachey was just like that, and the grade 6 agility set by Nic Jones both of which I highly enjoyed running.  There was one course on the Sunday, a 6-7 jumping set by Stuart Harmes that was going really well, no poles, Kiah really powering out and me attacking the course... until I got lost!!! Sometimes I just struggle to keep a course in my head and in this case I added an extra jump into the course and obviously got eliminated, damn!!  A highly enjoyable show though, and dry and hot and sunny, will definitely consider it again.