New opportunities and challenges

New UKA Winter Shows Announced

UK Agility is pleased to announce four new winter shows to be held in Norfolk. The East Anglian Winter Series dates are:-

• 11 October 2008

• 15 November 2008

• 24 January 2009

• 7 February 2009

The venue for the shows will be World Horse Welfare, Hall Farm, Snetterton, Norwich  NR16 2LR

UKA is also offering to all new members who enter either the 11 October and/or 15 November shows at time of registration a 15% discount on registration. Paper registration will, therefore, be just £8.50 an item. Online registration is £6 an item.  (This excludes TBYB).

Congratulations to the Winners

The UK Agility team representing Great Britain at the 2008 IFCS World Cup is back from Belgium with lots of Gold, Silver and Bronze. The results are as follows:

Individual Agility

• Gold                 Dave Alderson with Spice                26in

• Silver               Dawn Weaver with Minky               22in

Individual Jumping

• Gold                 Dave Alderson with Spice               26in

• Gold                 Wendy Fairlamb with Scout            16in

• Gold                 Dave Alderson with Libby               12in

Individual Snooker

• Silver               Chris Cole with Cap                       26in

• Bronze              Dawn Weaver with Chelsea            16in

Individual Gamblers

• Gold                 Wendy Fairlamb with Scout            16in

All Around (4 individual classes combined)

•         Bronze               Dawn Weaver with Chelsea             16in

Biathlon

• Gold                Dave Alderson with Spice                26in

• Gold                Wendy Fairlamb with Scout             16in

• Gold                Dawn Weaver with Minky                22in

• Bronze             Mark Powell with Trigga                  26in

A report will follow. In the meantime, you can see the complete results and some of the best runs on Guy Blancke's Smooth Moves Agility site.

IFCS World Team Fund Raising Raffle Winners

The lucky winners of the IFCS prize draw have been announced. Winner of the complete set of agility equipment was Brad Moyler while the winner of the training day was M. Pervis. The £100 doggie solution voucher went to D. Sweeney.

IFCS World Team Fund Raising Raffle

There are still tickets left for the raffle.  If you belong to a club or a training group have you considered risking £25 for the chance of winning

• £2500 of Agility equipment
• A free training day with one of the world team members (approximately £400)
• £100 of Doggie Solutions vouchers

Only 200 to be sold so your chances of winning are far higher than in normal raffles or lotteries.

Agility Fun and Games

UKA are really helping to put the f-word back into agility by including a whole series of games which have been all but forgotten elsewhere and phased out just because they unfortunately take up so much time. This means many new people entering agility for the first time are being introduced to games like Snooker, Gamblers, Time Fault and Out and Power and Speed.

In order to qualify, you must have won three UKA games classes throughout the 12 month period from January to December. The Games Challenge was invented so that everyone has an equal chance. It doesn't matter which shows you attend as any win in games classes anywhere helps towards qualification and most shows have games at them. 

Kim Hunt says, 'It is quite refreshing to have a choice of classes to enter and to be able to qualify for lots of finals including individual events at all levels, Pairs and Teams and now the Games Challenge. We have found that games classes require a different approach by the handlers so some clever course design can win classes rather than just speed!'

The  Games Challenge Final will be held at the Derbyshire Agility Centre's UKA show in July 2008 and will be judged by Lee Amos. Congratulations to the following people for qualifying for the final:

Maxi Height

• Andy Sanderscock with Free

• Greg Derrett with GT

• Susan Short with Zoe

Midi Height

• Amanda Applegate with Yogi

• Bernadette Bay with Zen

• Cyd Griffin with Mikko

• David Edmunds with Lucy

• Emma Knowles with George

• Jane Goodison with Freckle

• Jane Tatam with both Buzz and Jaggers

• Joyce Gibson with Coujoh

• Juliet Dearbeigh with Woody

• Nina Hampshire with Tilly

• Roger Brown with Kim

• Veronica Brown with Darcy

Standard Height

• Angela Williams with Pi

• Jane Powell with Keeta

• John Winney with Cassie

• Paul Hinchley with Fagin

• Paul Wood with Kira

• Stuart Carter with Spooks

• Tace Allen with Oakley

Toy Height

• Chris O’leary with Pip

• Dave Alderson with Libby

• Judy Wills with Tilly

• Leanne Degaris with Holly

• Lee Harfield with Bonnie

• Mandy-Sue Sarti with Izzy

• Rhianna Harman  with Jess

• Soraya Porter with Ernie

All these competitors have achieved at least three wins at a UKA show in Games classes throughout 2007, qualifying them for entry into the Final. This is an exciting competition open to all levels and heights of dogs, with the final held over two rounds - round one is a Gamblers competition and round two is a Snooker competition. The scores from both rounds are then combined and the competitor with the highest score after both rounds crowned the winner.

At the 2007 Derbyshire Agility Show in June, UKA put on an exhibition event to show everyone just how the final would run next year. The Judge was Laura Derrett who set two great courses. As the sun burst through, the competitors treated the crowd to a great display of brilliant handling and clever course planning with Jo Rhodes and her lovely Standard height dog Ci taking the winners place. Andy Sandercock was a close runner up with his Maxi dog Free while Dave Alderson with his Small dog  Libby took third place, illustrating how this competition has been designed so that all height dogs can compete against each other.

As this will remain an annual event,  there will be a series of games workshops throughout the year for aspiring games competitors. For any UKA members wishing to learn about how to judge the games, there will also be the Level 2 Games Judging courses, run by the by Kim and Shaun Hunt at the Derbyshire and Cotswold Agility Centres respectively.

Good luck for the 2008 Final in July and here’s hoping you have a great fun packed agility year, too.

For further information, contact UKA at enquiries@ukagility.com or ring tel. 01386 424218. Alternatively email Kim Hunt at kim@kimhunt.co.uk or ring tel. 01773 827643

UK Agility IFCS World Cup 2008 Team Selected

UK Agility are pleased to announce the following people will be representing Great Britain at the 2008 IFCS World Cup. The event will take place at Sportstadion in Ingelmunster (West-Flanders), Belgium from 9 - 11 May 2008.

This year's qualifying event was an exciting event with a very strong line up in all the height divisions. The overall results are below.

Section 1 results are taken from performances at shows.  Each handler had to submit scores from there best 4 agility and jumping runs.  Section 2 points were from how the partnership faired in the UKA National Finals. Section 3 points were taken from individual's performance in a head to head Snooker and Gamblers runs. The top two places automatically qualify to compete at the Worlds with the third place being a wild card choice decided by the selection committee consisting of Greg & Laura Derrett, Nicola Garrett and Shaun Hunt.

IFCS Qualifying Points

H J Agility Show Added to UKA Calendar

UK Agility Revised Rules & Regs

The Updated 2007 UKA Rules and Regulations is now available. The new version is accessible to download free online at www.ukagility.com or can be purchased up at your next UKA show.

The main amendments in the 2007 rule book include:-

• Handlers may now enter their Nursery dogs into the Steeplechase class.
• The 2006 Jump Heights voted in by competitors: Toy (300mm), Midi (400mm), Standard (550mm), Maxi (650mm)
• Lowered A-frame Height for all dogs:  1.70m (5'7”)
• Course design review and approval for all judges to help them with safe and sensible courses, without impeding upon creativity.

Rule books are free with all new handler registrations.

UK Agility World Team Selection

The next IFCS World Cup takes place in Spring 2008. The venue is yet to be confirmed but is expected to be Belgium in late April or May. IFCS hope to confirm this very shortly.

Greg Derrett said, 'Due to the success of the UK team in 2006 and from the feedback received from the competitors who tried out, we have chosen to keep the team selection process very similar. There are, however, one or two changes. We believe that this selection process incorporates many of the skills that are required to compete at an international level and in particular the IFCS event.'

Any dog regardless of breed may enter. Only competitors competing in UKA Champion classes will be considered. All KC Level 7 dogs registering with UKA are immediately eligible for championship class. All results must come from the equivalent UKA jump height to the IFCS jump height the dog is eligible for.  All results must be gained by the same handler.

Qualifying will be in three sections.

Show results
Competitors will have to submit times from their best four Champion Agility and best four Champion Jumping runs from any UKA show between the dates of 1 January 2007 – 3 October 2007.

National Final results
To gain points from this section, dogs must qualify and run in Round 1 of the National Finals at the UK Agility Week show which takes place 31 July through 5 August 2007.

Individual runs
All dogs will run head to head in a Gamblers and Snooker class on Friday, 3 August at the week show. All dogs with handlers must also have run in two Gamblers and two Snookers at UKA shows between the dates of 1 January 2007 – 3 October 2007.

For more detailed information or if you have any questions,  please contact UK Agility by any of the following means. Write to UK Agility (WC INFO), Langdale, Church Street, Offenham, Evesham, Worcs WR11 8RW, email greg@ukagility.com or ring tel. 01386-424218

The Royal Canin UK Agility Grand Prix Announced

UK Agility is pleased to host The Royal Canin UK Grand Prix event at UK Agility shows in 2007.

The main rules are:-

• Open to all dogs regardless of level with a competition for each of the four heights
• Seven heats held throughout the country (See below for details)
• All levels will run over the same course with each level attaining its own results. The results will then be combined and the top three from each height will qualify for the final. Full details of the rules and regulations will be in the show schedules.

Heats

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