Our October ASFA trials are treated as two single-day events, due to the first day being the Region 6 Invitational. I could even do the running orders separately, as I have to double-judge all of the stakes in the regional, and I am planning on only a single judge for every stake on Sunday. Thus, it’s not possible to have the same panel on both days. Doing the days together though will allow me to give all of the judges a chance to see all of the breeds, particularly the singles. I spoke with Meg, who will be chairing the weekend, and we have decided to offer the Single Stake at the regional. That will help keep the entry numbers up, as many of the Whippets are likely to be coursing at their national specialty in Illinois instead.
As before, I start with the judges (and what they are entering) and the list of eligible breeds across the top of a page, and then start a column of what I expect to be the breeds in descending order of the number of courses.
After getting the breeds written down, I can then populate the two days with judges for the breeds that have judges’ hounds. The Saturday assignments cannot be altered, so those need to be written first, and then I can pick one of those two Saturday judges to judge the breed again on Sunday. As I do this, I feel compelled to put names on the Singles as well, given that is going to likely be the largest stake, so that I can get a sense of how the work is being balanced.
After filling in the rest, I made one tweak on Sunday, just to event things up a bit.
That was the easy part. Now the running order, starting with Saturday. Per usual, I’ll put Singles at the end of the running order. The breed right in front of Singles, should be Greyhounds then, as that will give Laurie her best opportunity to prepare dogs and walk them out afterwards. I can fill in the rest of Dawn and Mary Frances assignment together in front of that.
One of those two will get the rest of their assignments at the front of the running order and the other will be in the middle. Mary Frances and Laurie are judging several of the breeds that I like as openers, particularly Basenji, as I know they will be there. Let’s lead with that, get the Ridgebacks in next, and then fill in the rest of their assignment together.
I think what would work best for Mary Frances is to run Saluki and Whippet in that order, with something certain afterwards and hopefully something in front. The something certain is Ibizan Hound, and we’ll hope for the best on the rest of it.
Sunday follows a similar process. Anchor the back end with Singles, and put a judges’ breeds right in front of that—Saluki in this case. Fill in the rest of Laurie’s assignment. Mary Frances’s assignments should be in the middle—seems fair given that she didn’t judge in the middle of the order on Saturday, and it ensures that the largest breeds all get a different area of the running order on the second day. The other judges’ breed that Mary Frances has is Ridgebacks, so they should be last on her list. For Dawn’s assignment, let’s lead with something certain, then the Whippets, and finish with the Greyhounds. I made one adjustment, swapping the Borzoi and Ibizan Hounds. That’s a lure operator consideration, keeping fast breeds together, just as I did on Saturday with Borzoi, Scottish Deerhound, and Greyhounds.
I’ll double-check everything another day, when I put together the separated tables for the separate premiums and the worker sheets.