The photos have been resent to me. These are the untouched originals so Riley doesn't look old and faded like she did in the first ones I received.
Princess Riley
Riley did really well at the Invitational. The hardest thing about competing at a venue like this one is there is simply no where to run Riley around and as you know she likes to zoom zoom. Allowing her to take a spin in the morning before competing helps to take the edge off.
Despite long walks, three days with no free running has Riley wound up tight and ready to explode.
On the day before the actual Invitational, there was a Time to Beat class that you could enter as a warm up. I pulled Seven just to save her wrist from one run, but definitely wanted to take advantage of it with Riley. We had a hairy moment at the end, but got through it and Riley placed 9th out of a lot of dogs.
The next day, Riley qualified in Round 1 with an 8th place out of 114 dogs.
The same day, Riley did not qualify in Round 2. She had an off course at 32 seconds. I should have cued the turn better with very clear deceleration. But even so Riley may have been unstoppable. At 31 seconds, she bounces the 15-20 feet of space between the two jumps meaning she does not take a stride. She simply jumps and then jumps the next jump.
Round 3 is Riley's best effort with a 2nd place finish out of 114 dogs. I was really proud of her for that.
On another note, one of the judges, Alan Arthur, had judged at another trial I competed at earlier in the year. He was very complimentary of the girls and told me he had an Italian greyhound. He also told me that his wife read my blog.
So at the Invitational, Alan was once again very nice and complementary. He especially liked Riley's Time to Beat run. And then he mentioned he reads my blog now too. So a shout out and a hello to Mr. and Mrs. Alan Arthur!!!
