2009 FH World Championship results - Page 2

even if scrape it off then you still stink

I do hope they share some stories when they return.  I am one that enjoyed tracking before things got goofy.  I am looking forward to getting back to it after things settle a bit more.  Getting closer...

I wouldn't be at all surprised if Al and Jeff write an article for the USA magazine. It will be interesting to see if more people are interested in participating in the championship next year.

I think I missed something on this thread.  My hat is off to Al and Andres.  It takes tremondous dedication and training to get to that level. 

Jim

Hi guys,

Well  first and formost I would like to thanks Jim Honda, Andre Aportella, and my brother Jeff for all of the support for our team this past  event. 

All of us trained hard, and let me tell you it's quite a bitter pill to swallow when your dog goes out and performs in anyway less than you expect.   In my case Hex simply had problems with the dirt in France.  This trial surface had a chalk like mixture included within the dirt itself, and while no one else had problems that I knew of, Hex certainly was quite bothered by it.  It is as if he were overwhelmed or confussed by the odor system.  So on our first track all we found was the scent pad and after starting Hex took some animal track off the track and we were finished.  The second track saw the same kind of work on the dirt.  My track started in grass, and the start was quite good.  @ 500 paces into the first leg we changed terrain back into dirt, and again Hex was again having a lot of problems and again followed an animal track.  In both cases it wasn't like he was stressed just more of total confussion.

Andre and Franka did better.  I didn't see their entire track for a few reasons, one was I was told Andre was tracking in a different place, which I will get to later, and these are just huge tracks.  They are all between 10 and 15 acres long.  So a lot of times a person would just loose sight of the dog because he/she went into a dip or valley.   In Andre's case Franka got tangled in the leash someplace around one of the sharp angles and was dismissed.

At a world tracking championship there are no gimmies.  So if you are a leash length and 1 pace off the track, you are basically DQ'd.  In my case I was told to follow the dog as soon as there was a problem.  If you do not follow the judges directions or hold the dog back again you are DQ'd.  So while I didn't see 100 % what happened with Andre's first track, that was pretty much what happened, that being no slack was given to the handlers. 

On Andre's second track, he started in grass.  It was cool and windy, and in the early afternoon.  I'm not sure if at some point they got into dirt or not, but this track was more of the 15 acre track I spoke of earlier.  Franka worked everything very nicely.  At the last corner, she had a few problems that cost her 3 points I think.  This track while layed well, was not layed out as the rest were.  There were more sharp angles than the other tracks, but she did a fine job and earned a 91

We arrived a few days early and practiced in Holland with a good friend of mine, Frans Jansen.  I was really worried about the grass since everything by me in terms of tracking conditions was still frozen or brown.  Hex did quite well on a couple of 4 hour track FH2 practice tracks in Holland.  Both tracks had grass and dirt as well.  So I went into the competition feeling pretty good about my chances.

Andre arrived a little earlier than I did and did some training in Germany with a few of his friends.  We met up in France and also did a little tracking together.  From what I saw I think we both felt we had a good chance to do well.  Looking back to those practice tracks in France, my legs that were in dirt had absolutely no animal tracks and was a more browner kind of surface with no chalk in the mix.  So I was totally suprized with my track.

Overall I think the judging and the facillity was good.  We used a local high school as the meeting place for the event.  This school actually has a dog training program, a kennel, and training field.  The kids were used for openning, and closing cerimonies, and a few other chores in between.  We gave the girls that helped us a few thin

cont.

Andre arrived a little earlier than I did and did some training in Germany with a few of his friends.  We met up in France and also did a little tracking together.  From what I saw I think we both felt we had a good chance to do well.  Looking back to those practice tracks in France, my legs that were in dirt had absolutely no animal tracks and was a more browner kind of surface with no chalk in the mix.  So I was totally suprized with my track.

Overall I think the judging and the facillity was good.  We used a local high school as the meeting place for the event.  This school actually has a dog training program, a kennel, and training field.  The kids were used for openning, and closing cerimonies, and a few other chores in between.  We gave the girls that helped us a few things from the USA, my ball cap and our flag as tokens of our appreciation.  They really enjoyed working with our team.

I have to say the organization of the event was poor.  As an example some tracks had up to 4 terrain changes, others had none.  The practice area I was given had a different kind of dirt than what we used for the trial.  The flight schedule was odd, and the tracking layouts were not the same for everyone.  I am disappointed that in a competition like this, with all the ground we had, better choices weren't made.  Everyone should have tracked on the same surfaces those being one kind of grass and one kind of dirt or a combination of the two.  In this area we had long grass, short green grass, some kind of short grass with some dead twigs sticking up and some kind of green leafy stuff.  I mentioned the dirt choices earlier.  This white chalky dirt along with brown dirt like we have in the midwest.  It's a pity everyone wasn't judged in the same conditions since there was plenty of it to choose from.  As another example of the poor organization, we finished on Sunday with the last track at 2pm.  We had I believe 16 tracks to run on Sunday.  Eight per judge.  We were given our scorebooks back at 7:30 pm  Both Andre and myself had a 5 hour drive to where we were staying, and he other competitors had longer to go as well.  The flight leaders, people at the school/meeting place had no idea what each other were doing or where people needed to be.   One time Andre was told to wait someplace, then they actually drew for him without him being there at his track draw.  He wasn't the only guy this happened to either.

I could go into other things that needed attention as well, but maybe some other time.

All that being said the trip had it's high points.  During the weekend a fellow from Croatia came up to me and as we were BS-ing, he mentioned that last year I gave him a swig of Jack Daniels after his dog had had problems on his second track.  He had similar problems last year to the ones I had this year.  I could see his dog was a good dog, just having a bad day, and I just tried to make him feel better since I had passed.  Well this year our positions were reversed as this time he passed. He remembered that day and this time offered me a drink.  That was very nice, and I'm lucky to have had a chance to be around these kinds of people.

Al Govednik

Al,

Thank You for the excellent post. 

Knowing the issues you all experienced also help other organizations and clubs to better prepare when hosting large events. 

You really get a better appreciation of our trials after attending an event such as this.  Many of the niceties that we had at the WUSV (interpreters, maps, etc) were lacking.  Luck of the draw really had more of an impact on the results than should be for a world championship .  There was a huge variability between the different fields.  A little planning would have went a long way in the utilazation of tracking fields and would have made the playng field alot more level

Often the people running the event did not communicate with each other and this led to confusion for the competitors


The tracklayers did a good job, the judges were consistant.  Lots of really nice people Just needed better organazation

Jeff G

Thanks to you also Jeff,

Did anybody any of you know get videos?  I would love to see some.