WELSH TAKE TOP HONOURS AT INTERNATIONAL SHEEPDOG TRIALS

CO DOWN sheep dog handler John Maginn won the brace championship at the International Sheep Dog trials held in County Down last weekend,

The course at Gill Hall Estate near Dromore was deemed perfect for running the trials on but various components of it proved tricky for the Irish competitors in the Singles section. The clock beat a number of competitors in the shedding ring where the sheep proved very difficult to separate, consuming a lot of time.

While John did well in the brace section with his dogs Lad and Kate, his fellow Irish teammates found the going tough with only one out of the 15 that had qualified making it through to the finals.

However, during his finals run Irish captain Paul O’Donnell with dog Limber from Kilcar in Donegal, experienced problems on the second fetch and ran out of time at the pen ending up in 13th position out of 15.

At the end of the championships it was one Welshman who secured both the supreme championship award and the reserve supreme award running two different dogs.

Kevin Evans from Brecon in Wales managed to qualify twice for the finals with two different dogs, Ace and Preseli Si, the latter of which was the supreme winning dog.

John McCullough from Portadown, president of the Irish National Sheep Dog Society, said: “We have enjoyed massive support for the championships. The competitors have been running a really high standard here in what is a perfect location for the trials.”

Scotland took third and fourth places in the singles championships and won the overall team championship. Scotland enjoyed further success as Ross Henderson from Galashiels won the driving championship with his dog Jude.