Corrigin yard

Corrigin Yard Trial. 14th September

The Corrigin Show had a record 1600 people through the gates, a much larger number than in the last ten years so the organisers were very happy.

The one-day yard trial, as always, was well supported by the local community in Corrigin. On top of providing sponsorship the Corrigin Agricultural Society organized further sponsorship from Wagin Grainfeeds (bag of dog food for each competitor) and Rabo Bank, Narrogin Branch (port for the judge and wine for the winners of each class). We had an extra bottle of wine and our patron Tony Boyle drew the name of one trialer out of a tin for this. The winner was yours truly and amidst a lot of laughing, I had to show that all the names had been put in the tin!

The atmosphere at this trial is always lovely with everyone involved helping out. The trial course is set up the day before but taken down after the Saturday trial in record time. It would be lovely to have commentary for the constant stream of visitors but it would be hard to spare someone for this task from the small number at the trial.

The sheep were tough as they usually are at Corrigin. In the gathers, they were flighty and inclined to split and run, but in the draft they were not keen to enter and this caused a few issues.

Due to limited time for the trial the event is organized in rounds with only three dogs guaranteed a run per trialer. This means trialers with more than three dogs have their weaker dogs later in the program when the sheep are less willing to move! With a couple of scratchings we did manage to complete six rounds.

This year the course was different to previous years and most handlers enjoyed the change. There were only two gathers instead of the usual three. The first gather required dogs to bring the sheep around the handler before entering the force pen for the drench. This proved to be a challenge for many teams as is shown by the range of marks scored.

Novice (26 dogs entered)

Neil Whyte. Barkervale Cobber 84

Jim Harradine. Dryandra Cooch 79 BC

Rod Forsyth. Kumbark Tod 78

Phil Barker. Barkervale Ringo 76

Rod Forsyth. Grassvalley Hazel 67. BC

Marianne Rogers. Marionvale Aykeira 66 BC

Rod Forsyth. Barkervale Austen 63

Karyn Buller. Boco Louie 62

Ken Atherton. Badgingarra Champ 51

Marianne Rogers. Ok Anwenelle 46 BC

Open (28 dogs entered)