mal circumstances they may have been disqualiied, (pro-
viding there is no ill efect on either the sheep or dog).
here are restrictions on eligibility for the event so that is is
predominantly kept for the inexperienced or newer competi-
tors to sheepdog trialling.
Monday begins with the Novice event followed by Novice i-
nal, and on completion of that follows the Improver/Open.
Saturday the inals begin. he Top 20 dogs in the Open com-
pete to ind the top 6 inalists, then the winner of that becomes
the overall winner of the Open. here is also a separate Im-
prover inal run.
Over four nights during the week a Trans Tasman event is run
under lights. his event is a mixture of Australian and New
Zealand rules and was created so that Australia could compete
at a fair contest against New Zealand. he style of trialling in
NZ varies greatly to how we trial here in Australia, with them
driving their sheep and being able to assist their dogs to work
the sheep, something Australian rules don’t allow.
On the weekend a Trans Tasman inal is run. On the Friday
he Dog Of he Year event begins, with the inal run over the
weekend. his event is a fairly new introduction which Bill
Paton started. Each state has an award for their highest scor-
ing dog of the year and he decided it would be a great addition
to the Commonwealth Championships to run an event where
all 6 top scoring dogs compete against each other to ind the
Top Scoring Dog of Australia. So far the event has been well
supported by both competitors and sponsors.he 2018 Open winner was Bernard McGlashen from Tasma-
nia with Somerville Nell, who in their 2nd round put up a
perfect score of 100.Winner of the Improver and Novice events was Bill Davidson
from NSW with his dog Wirchilleba Stormy. he Trans Tas-
man was won by Peter Oxley with Rivlin Caesar.One person greatly missed at this year’s event was Greg Prince,
who sadly passed away the Friday before the trial began. A
memorial was held in the club rooms at lunch time on the
following Friday which was well attended. David Hines played
a beautiful rendition of “Memories” on his banjo as photos of
Greg from his trialling years played on the theatre screen on
the wall and a touching service was performed by Peter Kerin.http://www.stockdogs.com.au AWSDM 85