Reimagining Our National Event: Part 2

In my last post I talked about some of the problems that I see with the current format of NZDAC. Now let’s imagine how it could be very different!

No Standard Classes

Firstly, why does NZDAC have to resemble an ordinary champ show at all? The standard classes are about graduating and achieving titles. Bread and butter stuff. In many other countries (e.g. USA, UK, some European countries) their major events are run on a different format and don’t count towards graduation at all.

The thing I don’t like about most of these events is that everyone is competing against each other – the only classes or divisions are based on height. I guess it makes sense for a world championship that you’re only going to have the very best – you don’t see Over-65s classes in the Olympic swimming events, after all. But for our NZ agility nationals I would like everybody to be able to take part.

So I propose 3 divisions:

1. Elite, run on Senior/JA level courses. Agility Champions and dogs that have had a top 10% placing in Senior in the last 12 months must enter this grade. It is also open to others to enter, so if someone thinks they have a promising young dog who can beat the best in the country, they are welcome to have a crack.
2. Intermediate, run on Intermediate/JB courses. This is for Novice/Intermediate dogs, and also those Senior dogs that haven’t placed in Senior in the last 12 months.
3. Novice, run on Novice/JC courses, and open to dogs that are still eligible for Starters.

Each division would also be split five ways by height, regardless of how many entries there are. If there’s two 240-height dogs entered in Novice and you win, you indisputably have the best 240 Novice dog that was there, so you get a trophy. And maybe more 240 handlers might be encouraged to give it a try next time!

Day One and Two: Heats

When I was a kid I used to read the Clean Run from cover to cover every month, including all the coverage of the big US and international events. These days I have a fulltime job and don’t have quite as much free time for being an agility anorak, but I have looked up the format of some more recent events for inspiration as well, e.g. the UKI US Open, the AKC National Championship, and Crufts.

I don’t like events that purely add together scores and placings, because these mean that if you get D’d in the first round you’re almost guaranteed to go home empty-handed, and as a result people play it very safe. I also like finals to be clean slates where everyone goes in with a shot at winning.

The first two days of the national championship will be heats. Every dog will have 6 runs over these two days – two agility, two jumpers, a gamblers and a snooker. Their placings for each class will be added together (as we already do with the zone team trials) and the worst two results will be discarded. The best 15 or 20 dogs will qualify for the finals.

Yes I know some people don’t like games. Hopefully having them as a mainstream part of the national event will encourage more people to give them a go. If not, it is possible to qualify for the finals without actually running the games classes, either by getting good placings in all the agility and jumpers rounds, or via the challenger round…

Day Three: Challenger Round and FINALS

Day 3 kicks off with the challenger round, where there are another 10 or 15 spots available in the finals for dogs that haven’t qualified yet. This is a single run over an agility course of the appropriate level, with the top dogs qualifying to go through to the final.

Now we need a little break while the show secretary finalises the running orders for the first round of the finals. This is a good opportunity to run the JDT Handler of the Year, the Interzone, and any other special classes we want to include at the nationals.

Finally, the finals. These will be run over a jumpers round and an agility round, with the time and faults added together to calculate the winner. In the event of a tie (as happened at this year’s FCI Agility World Championships) the placings from the two classes can be added together as a tie-breaker, and if the dogs are still tied they run off for the glory.

The first round of the finals will be the jumpers round, and will run in a random order. The second round will be the agility round, and will run in reverse order of placing from the first round, i.e. the dog with the fastest clear round runs last.

I’ve made the size of the final classes fairly generous in my example (25-35 dogs per class per height) so that are hopefully lots of clear rounds in the first round, putting the pressure on to go for speed in the second round rather than playing it safe. In reality this would probably need to scale in proportion with the number of dogs entered (there might not be 35 dogs for some classes and heights) but I think it’s important to have a fairly high minimum number to make the finals worth watching.

Perhaps 20% of the class goes through via the heats (minimum 5 dogs), and then 10% of those who miss out (minimum 5 dogs) go through via the challenger round. This gives a final of at least 10 dogs, and potentially over 30 as the number of entries nears 120.

Day Three Evening: Prizegiving Dinner

Hopefully our finals finish early enough that everyone has an hour or two to freshen up and put on their gladrags. Maybe not a black tie dinner exactly, but it’s fun to see agility friends dressed up a bit posher than they usually are at a dog show.

Prizegivings can be sprinkled throughout the evening or batched up and held in one go, e.g. between mains and dessert. Prize winners are allowed to bring their dogs inside for the presentation if the venue allows and then take them out again straight after – we are all dog lovers so I don’t see a problem having dogs in the dining hall, but it’s going to get awfully cramped if everyone has their dog in there all night. There is a pretty backdrop nearby for people to have official photos taken with all their loot.

Those who achieve high placings in the finals (perhaps the top 5) get a big ostentatious ribbon or rosette, a cash prize, and some product from the sponsors. The winner gets a trophy as well. These are the only presentations that are made at dinner, keeping prizegiving short enough that people can hopefully rein in their tendency to gossip until it’s done…

Finalists will get a little commemorative something to celebrate their success – perhaps a hat, a dog bowl, an umbrella … something that says “2030 NZDAC Finalist” on it that they can show off, and that also has a practical purpose.

Everyone who participated gets a certificate showing their overall placing. For the finalists this will be where they ranked in the finals; for everyone else it will be how they ranked based on their top 4 placings in the heats. The certificate won’t show the number of dogs entered on it, so you can proudly wave around your piece of cardboard saying you have the 64th best dog in the country without telling anyone there were only 65 entered. It will be printed on A4 sized white card, thicker than is typically used for clear round certs, and hopefully look good enough to frame and put on your wall if you want to.

The finalist keepsakes and ranking certificates and aren’t presented at dinner, but are available for collection, and you can take your dog to the photo booth to get some official pictures with your them if you want to.

Then after dinner and prizegiving is over, it’s time to hit the dance floor…

What I Like About This Proposal

• It doesn’t feel kinda like a massive version of a normal show. Everything that happens all weekend is a bit different from the everyday.
• Everyone wakes up on the last day with a chance at winning the final, as they do now. If this wasn’t the case, it’s likely a lot of people would be tempted to head home a day earlier, reducing the atmosphere at the finals.
• It’s not such an endurance event. The dogs that make it to the finals will have 8 or 9 runs over 3 days, maybe a couple more if they are in the Interzone or JDT Handler of the Year as well. Nobody’s racking up 16 runs!
• It should be doable with fewer rings running at once. On the first two days there are 3 classes x 3 grades = 9 classes to get through. One way to do this might be to have 6 rings set up but only run 3 at a time. While everyone is running their jumpers class on one side of the field, there’s plenty of time to set up gamblers on the other side. Or it could fit into the 3-ring setup (e.g. for the indoor venue at Manfeild) with a fairly early start and late finish.
• The big social bit is at the end. People will buy tickets in advance, not knowing if they made the finals or not, and therefore hopefully those who don’t will still stick around and watch the finals. It also means people can have some fun and a bit of a late night, without worrying about walking courses at 7am the next day. Maybe there could even be some fun stuff on Sunday morning to encourage people to stay the extra night, e.g. bacon and eggs for brekkie and a Dash for Cash, Strategic Pairs (always good for a laugh) or novelty event with a laidback 9am start time.
• I think it does a good job of celebrating the excellence of the very best in the country, while also providing a good experience for those who don’t have a realistic hope of taking home the top prize. Those who have steady reliable dogs have a chance of making the finals through the heats on the first two days. Those who have ballistic missiles who go clear once a year have a chance of making the finals through the challenger round. Everyone gets ranked and gets a certificate showing their ranking, which can be something to be proud of even if you don’t make the finals.
• People who have newly moved up to Senior or who are feeling very overfaced by Senior courses have the opportunity to compete down a level in Intermediate, where they will take on some of the best up-and-coming dogs. At the moment this is a group who often find NZDAC a bit pointless because they probably aren’t going to get any clear rounds, or if they do they might get 30th place in Intermediate… Setting the eligibility period quite wide (at least 12 months) means that hopefully people won’t try to game the system and train in the ring at a few shows so that their almost-champion dog can run in Intermediate at the NZDAC.
• The criteria for making the final on the last day are pretty black and white. I’ve had the experience twice of being right on the cusp of making a final (both times with one 3rd placing) and not knowing whether I’ve actually qualified for the final until quite a while after the last class has finished. On the occasion I did make the final, there were already people walking the course by the time I knew this, and it was a bit of a scramble to get back into my agility shoes and be ready to run on time. Under my proposed format, people who qualify out of the heats will know that before competition starts on the final day. People who are participating in the challenger round will know that they need to achieve a top X placing, which is a bit clearer than the current system where it depends a bit on whether the person who gets 2nd place in Starters 3 has already won another Starters class that weekend…