Newark

Newark was our first “proper” event of 2022 and it feels like a blinking long time since we last raced (November 2021!) so we were expecting to be a bit ring rusty on top of everything we had planned for the day.

We had entered this event with the aim to post 3 new team records…. as it turned out, do to unforeseen circumstances, we only nailed one of those, with the Cannons breaking the 18s barrier multiple times to post a 17.86s record. Congrats to Harper, Indi, Jake, Coda & Taggle!

CANINES – well, what can we say!? Declared the fastest we have ever declared for a comp and debuted 2 new babies straight into the top team. The aim for the day was to take things as they came… with the main view to be a training day. We elected to give the dogs a chance at racing before ultimately going NFC in the afternoon. Both Prime & Vegas looked incredible…. yes the environment blew their heads a bit but both boys haven’t even long since started running in a team, so to actually complete some heats (minus the odd ball) was amazing. We saw a 15.30 L2L time (with 2 very late spits) from Kylo, Bailey, Domino & Vegas, which resulted (upon data analysis) in giving us our first EVER sub-15 “dream time”. Kylo posted some of his fasted times in competition, equally his PB of 3.53s over his own height, and showing he is able to do passes! Domino was his usual robotic self and Pete enjoyed the challenge of lights later in the day when we were in NFC mode; Bailey struggled with the mats in the morning and was pulled before he could injure himself. All in all, a good day at the office for all! Couple of weeks off, back to training and then back to try again at Holly Lodge.

CATAPULTS – the second team we had hoped to post a team record but with poor Quest still not 100% sound we opted to run as a sync team and were joined by the lovely Walter from Phoenix. This was the first event that we had used Tristan as our height dog, with the team running over 11″ ready for the World Cup (just in case!). The dogs times were all a little bit off what we would expect, but they raced their heart out, taking 2nd in division 2 with a fastest time of 17.49s ( a smidge off our DT of 16.50s, LOL!). Congratulations to Hope & Ian on earning your Cadet Superior Award (5000 points).

CANNONS – our third team aiming for a club record and the only one succeeding…. but that was second to the amazing news that Harper made her first official outing as a Cambs dog after spinal surgery 14 months ago, rehab and box re-training – banging out a 4.20s time as well. Congratulations to the Cannons on you new record of 17.86s… not quite what we know you are capable of but still a massive achievement! Indi & Jake, although both still fairly green to competitive racing, are now the solid backbone of this team, both happily racing in both lanes and throwing out 4.3s times for fun. Taggle seemed a bit off his game so ended up sharing with Harper… watching the videos back dhow a fumble on the box in the 2nd race that caused him to twist so a bit of rest and a check over before we play again Mr T! Finally we have Coda… who is also still relatively new to this sport but is happily becoming robotic, whilst remembering his ball and clocked himself a new PB of 4.08s… can we dip into the sub-4s category? They came 2nd in their division after some amazingly close racing, being piped 3/2 by Re-Energize in the last race…. with a 0.03s difference (17.91 to us, 17.88 to them!).

CRUSADERS – this team saw Lord make a come-back to racing after his horrendous crash last September on his debut… so we are going to call this his debut instead… and what a debut! He and Janet had so much fun and not only raced well but also put a new PB of 4.17s on the clock! Lord was backed up by solid dogs Tizzy, Lennie, Ruby, Bella & Reeva… although the lack of balls does not really support this “solid” tag. Due to a whole race of ball spitting, plus dogs struggling to find grip, we didn’t fair as well in the division as we would have hoped coming 3rd with a fastest time nearly 1s slower than we declared.

CHARGERS – our super reliable “bottom” team did it again…. winning their division with winning 19 out of 20 of their heats. Yet again, we have grip issues with some of these dogs, making them a bit hesitant and off their speeds, but well done handlers for adapting and reading the race correctly to give all dogs the best support. Lexey joined this team after being booted out of the Cannons by Taggle and she has an absolute ball. Whisky, Dizzy, Remus and Amber just did their job and did it well. Bryn, bless him, found the noise a bit too much, so happily handed some ofhis heats to Lexey, standing in the wings happily egging on his team mates.

 

All in all, a good day…. roll on Holly Lodge at the end of the month!

Results

Team Place F/T
Cambridgeshire Canines NFC --:--
Cambridgeshire Catapults 2nd --:--
Cambridgeshire Cannons 2nd 17.86
Cambridgeshire Crusaders 3rd 20.27
Cambridgeshire Chargers 1st 21.90

Individual Dog's Results

Dog Fastest Time Points Gained Award(s) Earned
Amber 5.09 430
Bailey 4.03 0
Bella 5.03 160
Bryn 4.98 130
Coda 4.08 470 New PB
Dizzy 5.85 340
Domino 3.80 0
Harper 4.20 200
Hope 4.08 380 Cadet Superior
Indi 4.36 430
Jake 4.34 470
Kylo 3.53 0 New PB
Lennie 4.94 70
Lexey 4.76 300
Lord 4.17 120 New PB
Prime 0.00 0
Reeva 4.58 150
Remus 5.46 190
Ruby 4.90 190
Taggle 4.29 310
Tizzy 4.68 70
Tristan 4.09 380
Vegas 3.53 0 New PB
Whisky 5.20 330
Zola 3.93 380