So on Saturday, Remy and I had a very nice Standard run. Smooth, quick (except for his down on the table, which ALWAYS sucks) and qualifying. I was jazzed and hopeful for a double-Q.
Hahaha! Dream on!
Jumpers has always been more of a problem for us, partly because Remy just doesn’t seem to LIKE it (seriously, he seems to survey the course and say “meh, I don’t have to run FAST” ) and partly because I tend to get lost amidst the sea of jumps. But we have gotten much better over the past year or so, especially on courses where I don’t have to ask him for a start-line stay (which he doesn’t do much of anyway).
Our jumpers course started out pretty well for us, with two offset jumps to a tunnel. My plan was to send to the tunnel (which was a long one), rear cross and then run up to front cross between jumps 4 and 5. I figured if I didn’t get there, I could rear cross between jumps 5 and 6 instead. Remy is a rear-cross dog anyway, with a smoother, faster performance with rears, at least partially because my timing is better and I can keep looking forward.
Soooo… jump, jump, Remy goes in to the tunnel, I go to make my cross, and BOOM! down I go. Probably hit a soft spot in the dirt/mulch mix in the barn. But even as I’m going down, I am thinking “I WANT this double-Q!”
So as soon as I hit, I roll, and am getting to my feet just as Remy comes out of the tunnel and starts to move my way to check on me. I meet him, send him over obstacle #4 (without the planned front cross, obviously–we ended up with the rear cross between #5 and #6), and while our time was not the MOST stellar, we were clean! Double-Q #11!
Whew. We exited the ring to compliments and cheers for my apparently impressive recovery. I was kind of sore the next day.
