Newly formed Flyball Club, Box Clever, based in the Malmesbury/Tetbury area sent 2 teams to their first ever National Championships and came home with 2 great results!!!
Turned out in their brand new kit sporting the logo of the Club’s main sponsor, Baleman Services Ltd the teams looked a picture and stood out from the, over 300, established teams competing.
The Box Pacers team competing on Friday with a mix of experienced and debutant dogs got stuck straight in and by the lunch break had notched up 2 wins and just one loss. The afternoon saw some incredibly tough and competitive racing and the Pacers finished in a very creditable third place in their division. Debutantes Zillion and Libby put up a great show and were ably supported by experienced dogs Evie, Mopp and Fergus.
The Box Clever senior team competing on Saturday had an enforced line up change, giving Flynn a welcome return to Flyball, deputising for the unavailable Wilson, they found themselves in an amazingly competitive division with all teams only separated by one tenth of a second in their seed times. The rejigged line up of Reuben, Flynn, Rona and Cerys set about establishing themselves and by lunch had managed 2 wins and 1 loss, this gave no indication of the incredibly exciting afternoon to come! Lining up straight after lunch against the unbeaten and now favourite Dundee Dynamutts it looked all over for the Box’s but the reshaped team had now found it’s paws and set about the division leaders with aplomb racing to a 2 nil lead, the wily Scots fought back hard but the southern raiders punched out a fabulous win in the final race by just 4/100’s of a second. That shock result blew the division wide open and the Box’s suddenly found themselves going to their last match needing a win for outright victory. This was against the rapidly improving Lightening Strikes who bolted to a 2 nil lead, the fighting Box’s pulled it back to 2 all, so the whole division went down to the very last race of the day. Box’s suffered a heartbreaking knockout blow losing by a fraction of a second and finished very worthy runners up in the division after an incredible effort.
All in all a fabulous Championships for the new club formed only a few months ago making their debut at National Level.