World Team Tryouts.  My favorite event of the year.  I LOVE running these courses.  And Trek was simply amazing.  She has come so far, and I’m SO proud of her.  We were so close to pulling off the unbelievable.  The closest we’ve ever been.  I think I now may be a true believer–she could really do it.

I realize everyone comes out of an event like this thinking ‘if only.”  If only this had gone right, or this had happened, the results would be different.  Afterwards, I realized we had 3 different moments that, if one small thing had changed in ANY of those runs, Trek wins a spot on the world team.  It’s both heartening, and heartbreaking to realize how close you really were.  Round 2 JWW she handled great, but I failed to recognize a spot where she could go straight/long out of a tunnel, and didn’t cue the 90 degree turn until it was too late.  Round 3 she missed her dogwalk contact.  And Round 5, she missed her aframe, and I saw it and was late with a threadle cue,  causing an E.

One year ago after world team tryouts, I started down the road to running contacts.  I knew Trek needed every advantage I could give her, and she’s done very well.  Unfortunately, they fell apart about 4-6 weeks ago, and they’ve been hit or miss (haha) since then.  Obviously getting them where I want is my #1 priority heading into December EO Tryouts.  But I’m actually MOST disappointed about that Round 2 JWW, because *I* failed to SEE that there would be an issue coming out of a straight tunnel.  I saw it (and even made a comment out loud) for the large dogs, who had a similar sequence.  But for Trek, I thought she would be reading a turn.  Instead she carried straight, looking at an off course tunnel over 20′ away.  One simple call, and a rotation of my shoulders, and she is on course.  I hate that I didn’t recognize that spot, but I will continue to try to get better.

Overall, I’m ecstatic about the handling, which is why that one mistake is so frustrating.  Her wraps, backsides, and threadles were phenomenal.  Her speed was excellent.  She is really growing up — she handled a flight, new environment, etc, like an old pro.  So, I choose to be optimistic about where we are, and where we are going.  And I can’t wait to see what the future holds.

Here are all 5 runs from this weekend, in order…

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