It is the green carpet and it is it so for now the 40th year. This was my second time competing at CRUFTS and it was as exciting as it was the first time. This years CRUFTS was special in many ways. It is the year where Agility celebrates its 40th anniversary.

After last years success with Cute – remember we won both qualification runs, therefore the combined results too and afterwards the final in the evening and went CRUFTS International Champions – I could go relatively relaxed to Birmingham as I knew I’ve won everything which is possible at this event and that I made agility history together with Cute.

It’s still a long way to go from Berne (CH) all the way thru Luxemburg and Belgium to Birmingham (UK). 2535.2km to be exactly. Some would call this ridiculous or freaky. Yes, it might be freaky to drive so far. But hey, it is not just a competition, it is CRUFTS! If you haven’t been competing there on the green carpet or at least haven’t been there as a spectator in this gorgeous main arena, you can’t imagine even in your wildest dreams how the atmosphere is, how it has to be standing there and running with that crowed of nearly 10’000 spectators in your back. CRUFTS is something special and something unique in this world of Agility.

 

Show and Exhibition

We’ve arrived on Thursday night at our hotel. Therefore, we had the whole Friday to watch the show and exhibitation. Let’s simply say, it was shopping time 🙂 Since Cute loves plush toys, I bought her a plush crocodile. No one could be more proud carrying a plush toy the whole day around like Cute.

The exhibition is really huge. 5 halls fully packed with stands displaying toys, treats, food, grooming stuff, souveniers, clothes and much, much more.

The main arena holds the big shows. The day is filled with a varied show program from Agility, to Flyball, to Healwork to Music Freestyle over different displays like the Golden Retriever, West Midlands Police or the Royal Air Force display through to the various best in breed shows. And the best: On each single screen in the main arena’s lobby they played Cute runs throughout the day. This made me proud 🙂
And believe me or not, as soons as it’s time for the Golden Retriever display and you’re not having your seat yet… ouuuu, then you’re definitely to late to get into the main arena. All nearly 10’000 seats are from this point onwards til the end of the day program entirely occupied. People in front of the main arena are queuing up for 2 hours to get in. This just to get an imagination about the scale of this outstanding show.

Competition

I was aware it won’t get easy to take up with last years amazing success. Nevertheless, we tried our best. Saturday morning started with the qualification jumping. Extraordinary long distances between two obstacles followed by extraordinary short distances, this sums it up best. And on top of this a spurred by the crowed, exploding Cute. I never ever expierenced her like in this first run. She really exploded out of energy. In the first part of the course she went so wide between jump 3 and 4 that I was afraid she wouldn’t catch the weave entry anymore. So I had to improvise while putting up loosing the ideal line. Anyway, we finished the course with one fault which we got right on the third last jump. But still, 8 years old Cute managed the course without having an ideal line in 33.829, just 0.01 behind the winner Lilli.

Likewise, the followed agility run (second qualification run) had the same style. Extreme long/short distances (haven’t meassured it, but it was around 10 or more meters the longest and 4 the shortest) pattern in it. This is what makes it so difficult for us Europeans to handle it, as we are simply not used to it. Anyway, the agility was a good run and we handlet it nicely. Cute was still boosted with energy and this still made her nearly uncontrollable. After seesaw, I had to put so much energy and effort to collect her and get her back on track, that I was afterwards simply to late to help her finding the weaves. Awk…. refusale! 🙁 I hate being late!

But after all we showed solid agility and with a 10th place in the overall ranking we managed it to get into the final. Definitely pretty happy about that. The motto for the final couldn’t be anything else than “all or nothing”.
Really nice, european style course setup by Jackie Gardner. Thus I looked forward to run this one. Cute was again herself, still with lots of energy but way more controllable than in the previous runs. You know, the worst which can happen in agility is to knock the first bar. Sadly this happened to us… 🙁 Realizing the dropped bar I speeded up as much as we can, knowing to risk another fault. But at least we run the second best time (with our 2o2o contacts) and would have placed second!

In conclusion, I couldn’t fully tie on last years success. But that doesn’t matter. I’m super proud we reached the final, about the shown agility and about my super trouper Cute. She was in top shape as I never experienced her before. CRUFTS is and will be the top-notch in Agility.

At this point thank you very much Fabienne for looking at me and Cute. You’re the best groomer 🙂 Thank to all the support and good luck wishes I got from the lovely people standing behind me. You all are my motivation. Jenny and Nettan, it was so much fun the whole weekend with you.
And of course a huge thank you to Doggie Solutions for not sponsoring me, but for sponsoring the Agility International at CRUFTS and thus making it possible for us to be part of this most amazing event on earth! And last but not least to the organizers and all the volunteers. You all did an amazing job!

 

40th anniversary

This CRUFTS was special in any means. 1977, Peter Meanwell got asked to organize something to make the show program more attractive to the audience. And he invented Agility. It was at CRUFTS, 40 years ago, when Agility was first shown to the public. And from there it conquered every part of the world. It is amazing how far this sport came in the last 40 years!
Now you know, why the video starts with a short flashback to how Agility was born and started at CRUFTS. Lets celebrate this throughout 2018!

 

Watch our runs and 40 years Agility at CRUFTS…