Flyball News

Australian Record Broken

The weekend of February 24 & 25 was a big weekend for Australian flyball. The Australian record was broken, not once, but twice at the Royal Canberra Show by the Croydon Rockets. On Saturday, they broke the almost 18 month old Australian Record of 19.91 seconds by turning in a searing 19.62 seconds. The next day, just when everyone settled down, they stunned the competition by smashing that record with a time of 19.15 seconds! Congratulations to

Cathy Trudinger & Jedda - Little Black Dog
Eric Van Zyden & Jagger - Border Collie
Wendy Gauntlet & Astro - Border Collie
Ian Gauntlet & Ezri - Border Collie

European Championships Results

Miraculously it didn't rain on Sunday, so we were able to race our finals. However, the rain had taken it's toll on the grass, so the really fast times weren't run. Racing was fierce though. Sloeber Super Plus beat the Tornadoes from England in a heartstopping final and became the European champions. The Black Brains II, run by our Australian friends came first in division 3.

Belgian Record Broken Again!!

At the tournament held in Hasselt, they put a 17.35 seconds on the board on the first heat of the first race, bettering the one month old record from the Sloeber Super+ team by 0.03 seconds.

The team:

• Billy, 25/03/96, handled by Marcel
• Black, 11/01/95, handled by Kenny
• Chay, 01/05/97, handled by Els
• Vitto, 04/06/97, handled by Marco
• Voela, 04/06/97, handled by Nicole
• Zeno, 03/02/98, handled by Renilde

The jump height was 32,5 cm.

Belgian Record Broken

The Belgian flyball record was broken by the Sloeber Super+ team from Kontich.

At the tournament held by the dog trainging club 'Ter Dries' in Beerzel Belgium, they put a 17.38 seconds on the board on their first heat of their second race, bettering their own old time of 17.55 seconds.

The dogs:

1. Viper BC 31/mar/97 owned and handled by Marina Van Den Bulck.
2. Rana BC 2/sep/93 owned and handled by Sipora Van Den Brande.
3. U'mick BC 22/sep/96 owned and handled by Eva
4. Sophie BC 17/may/94 owned and handled by Frank

The jump height was 35 cm.

European Championships

The Belgian Flyball Federation (BFF) in cooperation with the Belgian Border Collie Club has announced the European Flyball Championships on June 24-25, 2000. BFF spokesperson Lia Belis reports that the exact location has not been determined at this time but it will in the Antwerp province in Belgium. It will be an Open Championship, 'probably' with preliminaries for final seeding on Saturday and the finals on Sunday. It is expected that teams from Belgium, The Netherlands, Italy, possibly France and Germany, and a team (or two) of handlers from the UK who can't bring their dogs because of the quarantine laws will be competing.

For more information email Lia at lia@yucom.be or Paul De Schrijver, BFF Secretary, at sds@ping.be or consult the 2nd European Flyball Tournament Schedule for more details.

1999 NAFA Annual Meeting

Mark your calendars!!! The 1999 NAFA Annual Meeting will be held on Saturday, November 20th in Novi, MI at 8:00 p.m. (tentative).

It's to be held in conjunction with a tournament hosted by Maximum Overdrive. Sponsored by PetsMart.

New World Records

Congratulations to Instant Replay on their world record time of 16.06 and to Rocket Relay on their multibreed world record of 16.646. which were both set on the weekend of July 24 and 25 at the tournament in Kitchener, ON.

First Open Polish Flyball Championship

Which are to be held on 14, 15 march '98 next to the 3-rd International Pedigree Dogs Exhibition in Poland , Katowice (Spodek '98). The competitions will be held on 14, 15 march '98. The machine training is to take place on 13.03.'98 after the exhibition. Please send the applications to the competitions to 20.02.'98 to the following address:

POLSKI ZWIAZEK KYNOLOGICZNY
ODDZIAL KATOWICE
ul. Kosciuszki 42
40-048 Katowice tel/fax +48 032 516-780
e-mail: leszko@silesia.top.pl

Any number of teams can take part in the competition. Each team is composed of 4 dogs. It is possible to took rooms in a hotel. The competitions are requested to take certificates concerning proper vaccinations and proper health books. Female dogs with heat will not be allowed to enter the exhibition as well as to the competition.

In your applications please give the following data: Country, Town, Club, The number of teams, The hotel reservation (number of rooms /beds/), The date of arrival, Name and Surname of guide (master), Permanent address, Dog"s Name, Breed, Date of birth, & Sex.

Flyball Featured on TV Shows

The Discovery Channel's Breed All About It scheduled to air on December 29 will feature footage of Houston Flyball Association's Astrohall Tournament. We are told that there will be a full race of HFA's Fast Forward team from many angles.

Belgian Record Broken

The Lupus team established a new Belgian Flyball Federation record with a time of 18.68 seconds at the Espace Canin tournament on 30th Sept 1997.

Instant Replay Letterman Report

Before leaving for New York, we met on Sunday at 10 PM for socializing before the bus arrived at 1AM to load up. Now you know how tired we are. They changed the date from May 14 to May 15. The phone call got to us at the hotel at about 7PM. saying it would be the 15th due to a chance of rain and they wanted us to be on with Jeff Foxworthy. As our bus was rented and people had taken time off work, you can understand our problem. In addition we told everyone it would be the 14th. They contacted the bus company, made the arrangments, and agreed to pay all additional expenses.

We were picked up at the hotel at noon on Wednesday by 2 very large mobile homes which were for our use. They also had 2 vans available to take the dogs to Central Park for coffee breaks. 53rd St. was shut down at 1:45 for our rehearsal and the security was extremely tight. People filled the street and it was packed until we finished at 7 PM. We could not have been treated better by the Letterman people especially Diane and Sara.

We were treated to all the food and refreshments and 4 tickets to the show. During our rehearsal they had one of the producers run Tyler in place of Dave (Letterman) who would be running Tyler during the taping. Just previous to the taping we were informed Dave had a sore neck and would not be running a dog.

Since the mixed White team and the Gold team run within a .5 seconds of each other, we expected good races. Tammy stressed safety with no early exchanges and not to push. The white team ran within inches of Dave's leg and never missed a jump. Both teams ran clean all day under extreme conditions. We had one bobble in the run off at the end and I think that was when we were reaching for balls. As we ran at least 15 heats without an interuption. All our people did a great job, the handlers, the extra people and their dogs, the timers, the catchers, the wives, the husbands, and of course the box loaders.