Well Ripley DID win her heat and therefore got to race in the final (in other words she was down to the final 6) but unfortunately by then she didn't see any point in being fast anymore so did the last race at a, shall we say, leisurely pace! And was last in that! Oh well, no crisps for everyone! It was fun though! Some of the dogs were obviously NOT suitable at all -a Pekingese?! He didn't really move at all, LOL.(Acctually that was sensible, it was too hot for that dog, so he did right!)  The winner was a Border Collie who does flyball and agility normally and she certainly WAS very fast and obviously very well trained -in the end what a lot of it came down to was the owner having a good recall, and some of them didn't. One collie in one heat was in the lead, then halfway down suddenly turned around and ran back the opposite way.

The report is in the Sun today and there is no Ripley picture, but if you look at it ONLINE there is an actual video of the event, and if you watch that, you WILL see Ripley several times.(She's the Malinois!) Beware, I am pretty certain both the article and the video will ONLY be available to view TODAY. (5th of September 2005!) The URL is:
[link]http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2-2005410070,,00.html[/link]

It's a shame they didn't use photos of all the 6 heat winners as they took plenty. There were two "celebrities" (yes I do use that term loosely!) there from Big Brother -now that isn't a programme I have ever watched so I didn't know who they were, but apparently they were famous. The woman (Saskia) was there to start each race, and it turned out she was terrified of dogs. The Sun wanted photos of her with a dog, but she intially refused. They asked her to pose with Ripley and she made excuses saying she couldn't cope if the dog jumped up at her, so I said that Ripley is TRAINED and if I tell her to sit and stay she will not move. So I put her in a sit stay in the middle of the race track, walked off, and Ripley just sat there and allowed people to pose around her, even putting their arms around her, and she never moved at all. Our local newspaper called this morning and when I mentioned this they said they'd try to get hold of these photos.

It was  a very hot day, London traffic was horrendous with the last 8 miles taking us over an hour (!) and in the end we didn't get back home until gone 8 pm by which time we were all rather tired. (We left at 6 am.) But all in all it was a fun day and I was very pleased with Ripley doing as well as she did! It was 100 metres and in the heat she won her time was 8.48 seconds.

Edited to say: I don't know WHY the link doesn't work, I usually do links okay but it won't work this time???

Well done Ripley. I would have liked to put Indy in that as I have yet to find anything to beat him on the flat, he has even been known to out run a Lurcher, but he would not have been impressed with all the other dogs around him. :p

I went to the site Marianne, but can't see the video working, it says "done" but nothing happened :(

Well done to you and Ripley, at least you had a good time :)

Lindsay
x

Ripley did really well to get to the last 6 so you must be extremely proud. Its not the winning thats important, its the taking part, bet she slept all the way home.
Well done to all of you.

Could not quite work out which one is Ripley :(

Well done Ripley :P

All those crisps would just have been fattening anyway ;)  Congrats to you all!  Teri   

Well done Ripley!! :D :D :D

Well done Ripley! She did really well!

Did they have the dogs chasing a hare as in greyhound racing, or did the owners have to call them?

Saw the write up in the Sun this morning. Well done Ripley :) She did very well to get that far anyway :)

I wonder why I can't see the video? I went from your link on the BSD forum, Marianne, so just clicked. It did seem to "load" but very fast and then it was all blank
I really wanted to see it - oh well.... :(

Bet she looked great!!

Lindsay
x

That's strange Lindsay. Have no idea why.   Do you have Flash installed? The film is actually a fash file, for whatever reason.

Not sure about flash - maybe not... my OH does that sort of thing...:P

Lindsay
x

Thanks all! :) JG, they simply had helpers from Battersea holding onto each dog's collar, the owers walked away, the helpers let the dogs go and the owners called them. So essentialy it was just like a simplified recall.

Well done to Ripley!  Hope you manage to get some photos of Ripley.  Let me know if you do, cos I'd love a couple of copies!!

Sarah.
P.S Couldn't see the film either!

Awww well done :)

Well done Ripley :D :D

Odd about the film, again! :( Will let you know about photos. :) (She will probably be in OD too.)

Yippee, well done Ripley!! :-)