SATURDAY 2nd August 2003

PRANCING PAWS
HTM Freestyle Event CORNWALL 2003

We had a great entry of 58 routines for this the second show held in Cornwall.

We had decided to try out a different way of judging. We had one judge for each section and each judge had 10 marks to award, in decimal points if they needed to. It seemed to work well for the judges and the contestants. The advantage was the ease of judging when you only have to look at one aspect of a performance, the disadvantage was that they were expected to change sections occasionally and that was difficult.

THE JUDGES with Pat Richards

Interestingly there were very few routines which had disparate marks.

Starters heelwork had 16 entries of which 10 ran.
It was won by Hannah Crook with Jasper performing to Old Fashioned Lover Boy by Queen, a good choice to show of Jasper's flashy heelwork.
Helen Murphy and Rafiki were second with Stuck With You.
Jackie de Jong and Jessie third with Moving On Up.

Starters’ Freestyle was won by Alan Eves with Bert, his Grand Basset Griffon Vendeem, a super routine to Hello Mother, Hello Father. Very dramatic!
Second was Pat Fell with Sandy her little terrier cross performing to There's No Business Like Show Business,
Third was Carol Hewson and her German Spitz Foxy working to I Have a Dream.

Novice heelwork was won by Lynn Crook and Rune using Its a Sin in a excellent routine which covered a good amount of ring area and a variety of heelwork positions,
Second was Chris Morse with a tear jerking Annie’s Song with Bracken
Third was Maureen Graham with Choni and another Queen song, Hammer to Fall

.

Novice Heelwork Winner Lynn Crook - 2nd Chris Morse

Novice freestyle was won by Lesley Neville and Angus performing to Do Wack A Do with Hannah Crook and Tassle close behind them in second place with The Entertainer
Pat Richards and her lovely Springer, Willow, was third with Spirit In The Sky.

Intermediate heelwork was won by Ann de Rizzio won with Ccino and also was a well deserved second with Corin, using you're Just in Love and Greased Lightning respectively.
Carol Mortimer and her German Spitz, Zac was third with Baker Street.

Intermediate freestyle gave Lesley Neville another win, this time with Robbie, Walking in the Rain and Sunshine! It was great to see Trish Parsons back with Monty doing Hot Rock and third was Jackie Clarke and her Staffie cross Annie.

Karen Sykes was the only entry in Advanced heelwork but won it convincingly, her Hall of the Mountain King routine with Fly is a classic.

Karen and her other dog, Kes, came up against Pat Richards and Ross in Advanced freestyle. I'm very glad I didn't have to judge them! Two very different routines and both brilliant. Karen just won with her Hot Stuff routine to Pat's moving Morning in Cornwall.

Pairs was won by Jackie and Christiaan de Jong taking a break from judging performing to Hey Good Looking.
Pat Richards and Lynn Crook were second with Ross and Champa and Carol Walker and Janet Crossley third with Sky and Tinker.

Innovation produced some interesting routines! Very difficult to judge but all three agreed the winners for sheer entertainment value had to be Val Pinnington and Melissa Chapman with Val's dog Braid. The Combine Harvester dance had to be seen to be appreciated, even the dog was shell shocked!
Carol Mortimer took up a challenge thrown out by Pat Richards at Crufts’ when Pat said she would be working three dogs---"So what" said Carol "I'll do four!" So she did! However as Pat didn't make it with three Carol changed her music to the highly appropriate I'm going Slightly Mad by Queen! It’s brave enough taking one German Spitz in the ring, four requires great courage!

The venue was the Agricultural College in Camborne – what a magnificent hall with a beautiful cord carpet for safe footing!!! The Hall had been fabulously decorated to transform the Conference facility into a theatre.

All winners received very attractive silver photograph frame and the Judges all received wonderful leather leads with brass fittings and embossed with “Cornwall 2003 Cornwall”.

A lot of effort, hard work and thought went into the arranging and organisation of this show – three people working very hard together – and the end result was a show worth visiting - great!!

A more complete report will be published in the next
Canine Freestyle GB Newsletter.

For more details email newsletter@caninefreestylegb.com