Agriculture / Westside sheepdog trials a big success
IT WAS a beautiful day for the West Side sheepdog trials on Sunday (4 August), a warm morning with just enough wind to keep the midges away, writes Liz Peterson.
The day started at 8.30am when competitors, who had travelled from all over Shetland, got a cup of tea and a first look at the programme of events, before the competition began.
The first West Side trial was run in 1978, and the only year missed was 2020, because of Covid.
Many of the first competitors are still running in the Shetland trials today, and it is widely recognised that we need to encourage young handlers into the activity, so we can ensure that sheepdog trials continue to thrive within Shetland.
The whole community helps out with the running of the West Side trial, which includes tasks such as painting the gates, keeping the field in order, cooking food and snacks, arranging and collecting all the prizes and editing and printing the programme, etc.
The competition usually starts with a junior class, which is open to any young handler, unfortunately there were no entries this year.
There is also a doubles or brace class, for handlers wishing to run two dogs, again sadly there were no entries in this class.
Therefore, the first event on the field was the limit class, which is limited to learner dogs, who haven’t won a prize in an open competition. These young dogs are often taking part for the first time in a trial, so they are doing well to simply fetch the sheep down to the handler, who is waiting at the pen.
Whilst the course was well laid out, the sheep were sometimes unpredictable, which made it challenging at times, for some of these inexperienced dogs to keep them on track. The limit dogs running on Sunday showed great promise though, so hopefully with some more practice, they will go on to become more experienced in trialing.
The next class was the main class, the open. This class is for experienced dogs and handlers, and the standard in Shetland currently is high, comparable with most areas on the Scottish mainland.
There were 26 entries in this class, and the task for dogs is to fetch the sheep down to the handler, then turn them around the post, and drive them away through two sets of gates, before coming back down to pen the sheep. Finally, the dog must shed (split) the sheep into two separate lots.
This process is timed, and so pressure is on the handlers to complete the routine as quickly as possible, whilst keeping the sheep moving along the desired straight line.
The first cross gimmers were in good health, fit and feisty, and sometimes the dogs had to work hard to ease them into the pen.
However, several competitors managed to achieve this, so the judge, Brydon Anderson from Ollaberry, had a difficult task to score the various competent runs.
There was a break during the open class in the middle of the day, so that everyone could go and get a good feed from the Skeld Hall staff, who had kindly made mince and tatties, followed by trifle.
This was much appreciated by all, especially the competitors who had left home early in the morning to catch the 7am ferry to come and compete in the trials.
Following the completion of the open, the top five scorers went through to the championship class. This follows mostly the same process as the open, but handlers are given some sheep with collars on, so additionally at the end, the handler has to split off one collared ewe from the others.
Again, the runs were of an excellent standard, and once the championship class was competed, everyone went back to the hall for the results announcement and prizegiving.
The committee felt that the day had been very successful, and they hope that all spectators and competitors enjoyed themselves. They are always keen to encourage new handlers and should anyone want to find out more about the trials, please get in touch.
Special prizes awarded were:
- Best West Side competitor – Sandy Fraser
- Best outrun – Brendon Smith with Lass
- Best pen – Rob Colclough with May
- Best lift and fetch – Brendon Smith with Lass
- Most prizewinning points – David Murray with 302 points
- Best shed – David Murray with Sweep
- Best drive – James Nicolson with Abby
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