Working Test 7th June
East Anglian Labrador Retriever Club held their Open Test at Windolphs Farm Stansfield on 7th June 2009. Judges were Stan Harvey and Tom Lowe.
This was the tenth year that the Open Test had been held on this wonderful ground, and it will probably go down in the history of the club of one of the wettest mornings. Torrential rain had been forecast for much of the country and certainly we picked up the edges of the storm during the morning. The 23 competing dogs, of course, were already getting wet whilst competing in the two water tests in two of the five lakes that we have to choose from.
The four retrieves in these two tests took us up to lunch break, after which the groups were split once again, one group in a 4 dog walk up with blinds and marks shared between the dogs, whilst the other group retrieved a blind followed by a memory mark.
‘A’ panel judge Stan Harvey felt that the tests were very demanding, and that there had been some very good dog work during the day, the winners had excelled but the remaining dogs had performed extremely well.
The winning dog, for The Dunlin Cup, was Mike Tallamy with his Labrador Retriever Dog Brindlebay Butler
Second was Mary Darton with her Labrador Retriever Dog Delfleet Gizmo of Westernash, and she also won the Thomas Kinder Shield for the youngest dog in the awards
Third was Dave Gosling with his Labrador Retriever Dog Airship Larch
Fourth was Doug Preston with his Labrador Retriever Bitch Kayteesn Cockle
Certificate of Merit was awarded to Peter Darton with his Labrador Retriever Dog Fieldmark Falco by Westernash
