BAS NATIONALS 2013

Another busy weekend - this time at the BAS Nationals near Leighton Buzzard. I really haven't spent much time in Bedfordshire before and being Friday thought it best to avoid the M25 and go cross-country to the show. The little man in my phone, who speaks English in a foreign accent, often the cause of much hilarity from me and Rebecca, took us through some really beautiful villages with views across to the Chiltern Hills which made it a very pleasant journey.  With animals settled in and voting done at the AGM we checked in at our Hotel - the hub of nightlife in Leighton Buzzard it seems, complete with bouncers on the door! However, our room was up the quiet end and very comfortable with lovely duvets too.  What I hadn't realised when booking it was that the Saturday Market would be set up at 4.45am just outside our Hotel, which took a couple of hours and involved what sounded like a lorry load of metal poles being dropped and rolled onto the tarmac ....

This was an Age Championship show, so the running order is completely different from the Colour Championship shows of the rest of the year, it took me a while to get my head round what was going on.  I prefer the Colour Championship shows, it just seems to make more sense to me. My frequent  trips to the penning in a different building to bring members of our show team to the ring, was a bit of a nightmare at times, thanks largely to members of the public complete with their dogs and toddlers oblivious to the dangers of frightened alpacas potentially kicking out at toddler-head height, blocking up the walkways from the penning shed.

The first mornings showing for us was our 5 junior females and all of them were placed with Bonnie winning her Light class and Macy Grey and Enigma coming 2nd in their grey and black classes.  The afternoon was the turn of our 4 intermediate boys, again all placed.  Eros and The Sorcerer both clear winners in their classes.

The Gala Dinner was a great success - a bit chilly but great fun with very good food. There was a pair a ridden camels, one of them moving as gracefully as possible given it's conformation and gait, and in complete harmony with his rider performing quite tidy flying changes - I would love to have had a 'go' on him - never ridden a camel! The pony scurry racing, would like a go at that too, and dog agility were both very entertaining.  Our taxi driver was very considerate and parked right outside the door so thankfully we didn't have to plough our way through all the strange smelling black mud in the car park.

On Sunday Topsey Turvey came 2nd in his multi class. Last in for us was Bonami, who won his Adult fawn class and then went on to win reserve Champion Adult Male,  I couldn't have been more surprised given the line-up of whites in that Championship - the Judge praised him for his fineness, great density and very low transition line.

New to the Nationals this year the Regional Groups were in competition for points across everything in the show and our own Southern Regional Group won the massive trophy which I was presented with as it's Chairman and I must say well done to all our Members!

So that's it for shows for  us for a few months. Now it's cria time and our first "Jumper"  is due today, on eleven months - she doesn't look ready yet.

Rebecca and Marah having a go at the agility course

Macy Grey and Enigma

Rebecca in the middle with Topsey Turvey

Bonnie , Bonami and Eros