Ashley Whippet Open Qualifier - Scottsdale, AZ

Wow! I just love the CynoSports weekend in Scottsdale Arizona. This is the 3rd or 4th year in a row for me at this event, and every year the weather is perfect, and the people are fantastic.

This was the Open Qualifier, on the Friday before the weekend, for the Ashley Whippet World Championship. We weren't sure how many teams they were going to allow into the AWI on the weekend, so the stakes were high to do well on Friday.

We had teams from all over the United States, and all over the world taking part in the qualifier competition. Any team that is going to travel half way around the world, with their canines in tow, won't be making that kind of trip without top-notch talent and top of the heap goals. The teams from Germany, Japan, the Netherlands were spectacular in content and execution as everyone kept uttering WOWS, and GASPS at the new and exciting tricks being thrown down.

I guess I don't have to belabor the point that I felt just a bit overmatched. But we traveled out to Arizona to give it our best shot. And so we did!

After the first round of Freestyle, we were humbled by the performances we saw. The Japan teams sat in 1st and 2nd, Germany's Sabina Bruns was in 3rd, and Steve Mahmlov and Roo Yori held the Torch for the US grabbing 4th and 5th.

Bailey and I went out there and did our thing to Jump, Jive, and Wail and put together one of our better routines to settle in at 10th place (30 top-notch teams out there).

Then came the Toss & Fetch round was upon us. It was announced that only the top 6 teams after this round would advance to the final round of freestyle. Robert Gutierrez and Zephyr went out and threw down the BEST T&S round of the day with 17 points, and mind you, he did this with a left hand in a cast. But it wasn't enough to get them into the top 6th and they settled for 9th place. One of the Japan teams, Yoshihiro Ishida & Rusty tossed a great round of 16.5 point cementing them into the top spot going into the final round. Steve Mahmlov also stepped up with a 16.5 T&S round boosting him up into the 2nd position.

Bailey and I answered the call that day by posting the 3rd highest T&S round with a 15 which propelled us into the 6th Spot! We made it! Yahoo! But Roo Yori, sitting in 3rd place, wanted to save his dog going into the AWI World Championships the next day and scratch which moved Bailey and I into the 5th position!


The second round of freestyle proved even better for Bailey and I as far as performance goes, and we improved on our first round score! But the quality of competition at this point was just to much for us, and we ended up falling to 6th place. But our freestyle score was very respectable, and in the ballpark with all the others.

All in all, a very exciting day for us, and another proud day for my Bailey boy.