Coalinga - Excuse for Dinner @ Harris Ranch

Piper and I travelled North to compete @ Coalinga for the first time last weekend. Rylee came along for socialization. We stayed at the Motel 6 across the street from Harris Ranch. So Saturday night was a planned dinner at Harris Ranch.

The field at Coalinga is big enough to have a big outrun and fetch but as set it was about 300 yards or so for Open and maybe about 250 or so for Pro Novice. The field slopes up gradually from the post to set out and most people sent to the left. On the left outrun the wider running dogs went out of sight for a while in the rolling hills. Danger to the right was that the slope would kick the dogs in or they might go back to the set out pens. The sheep - for the most part - worked reasonably well. They did seem at times a bit difficult to shed but otherwise generally OK with a few runners (more on the runners later).

Before getting to our own runs a special congrats to Carolyn Crocker and Lyn who won the Open on Sunday in only their second ever open run together (Saturday was the first). Also congrats to Mike Burks and Mia who had tow beautiful runs in Pro-Novice to take first both days. Congrats also to Sally Douglas and Babe (2 good open runs) and Merle (2d in PN on Sunday). Some of the best work I have seen from Babe and Merle on a big field.

Piper had a generally pretty good run on Saturday although the drive was still a bit out of control. Score of 66 - good for third place and a check that was $0.02 short of my dinner bill Saturday night at Harris Ranch. Thanks for dinner Piper.

Anyway Piper's outrun to the left was her normal good outrun with 0 points off and she only lost 2 on the lift. On the fetch I over adjusted on the bottom third and had some difficulty at the turn - going wide and having to rewind a bit. Still she only lost 5 so it was not too bad. The drive had more problems and she was over flanking and not listening as well as she needs to. The sheep came into the pen mouth a bit hot from being harassed on the drive but I blocked them with my crook and body and Piper did some very nice work at the pen making small adjustments and walking the sheep reluctantly into the pen.

Sunday was a different story. Piper went wider on her outrun but since the last thing I saw before she disappeared over the hill was Piper looking for sheep I swallowed the whistle and waited. She reappeared on the right path - just a bit wide - and we lost 1 point on the outrun. I banged her down hard at the top and walked her in losing 1 point from the lift. From there it went to heck.

At the top of the fetch the sheep were mildly off line to my left. I gave Piper an away to get them back on line and I think she must have come too far to the heads because the sheep decided to turn back and go past on line and make a break back for the set out pens. A big come bye managed to catch them before the escape was completed but the damage was done and by the time we got them down to the post almost all of the fetch points were gone. From that point I actually thought the drive was a bit better than Saturday but we lost a lot more points. I think maybe the drive score was influenced by the atrocious fetch and generally poor feel to the run. At the pen the sheep managed to get around one time so we lost four points before tucking them in nicely. Overall the run just had the feel of Mr. Toad's Wild Ride.

Oh well - still need to get some consistency. But we still had fun.