Savioja jumpers practice

Last night I met with Sandy at Shamrock and we set up a Savioja jumpers course. The reason I was interested in running this course was for the challenges of the threadle, tunnel entrance and weave entry on the first course and weave entry on the 2nd course. Origianlly, these two courses were the large and mini dog courses from Savioja. The 1st one posted is the large dog course and the 2nd the mini dog. Since the endings were the same, Sandy came up with an alternate ending for the 2nd course, and it was pretty nasty!

The first time I ran this course we were clean except for the last jump, where the bastard - I mean naughty dog - ran around it for a toy I dropped on the ground.  Many people have been telling me to play or throw a toy at the end of a course because he tends to jump really high, head up for it.  But placing the toy is a bad idea, I think.  From now on if I can't have someone throw it, I won't bother.  I handled 2-3 as a threadle and rear crossed 4.  Because of this I was pretty far behind as he came through the tire.  and I got a wide turn to the tunnel (6).  The 2nd time through I handled it as a push-through and that worked much better.  The wrong end of the 6 tunnel was more of an off-course potential than it appears on the map.  Both Icon and Quill took it once when we didn't work it enough.  I pulled from 7-8 and Sandy front crossed.  The front cross worked much better.  I was worried about getting into the gap at 11-12, but it was not hard and I was able to get a rather nice turn to 12 and front cross again after the 15 tunnel.

The second course was a bit more challenging, except for the weave entry, which is what I thought would be hard.   From the tunnel I just called Icon to me past the jump (and they were pretty close that 7 jump coming through and let him have the weaves.  Their first time through, Sandy over handled a bit and Quill had a zig-zag towards the weaves, but she still go them.  Front crossing after the weaves and pulling 11-12-13 worked very well.  Sandy said I should have hugged jump 11 more during that part because the first time through he had a hard look at the poles.  A chop from the broad jump into the correct tunnel entrance worked well.  One time through I chopped too early and Icon came through the broad jump sideways.  That is definitely a weak area for us.  16-17 should be a 180 (not a threadle as marked) but I had to chop after 16 to get Icon in.  I probably should have been able to do that with a pull and lateral motion, but when I tried that I got a really wide turn since he went first towards the weaves and then the chute.  17-18-19 was handled as a push-through to a rear cross.  It worked really nicely.  20-21 was a threadle and required a chop as well as 21-22.  The first time through I tried pulling and he read them as 270's, which is what he was trained to do.

I was started to freak out a bit about WT tryouts prior to this practice, but I feel much better now.  I have downgraded my WT Tryouts goals for this year and will post about that later.

Some things to remember from this practice:

1. For tight areas I need to talk to Icon constantly.  
   
2. Don't turn to early when Icon is over a broadjump!
   
3. Icon will default to a 270 behavior, so if in doubt about the line, chop!