In this episode (25:19)
In this episode, Jenn shares her experience at the 2024 Premier Cup which was held June 29th at the National Sports Center in Blaine, Minnesota.
You Will Learn
- How to get an invite to this event.
- Jenn’s history with this event.
- Details and stories about this year’s surface, venue, and weather.
- The winners of each height class.
Mentioned/Related
- Where to Watch the 2024 AKC Premier Cup
- Information on the venue and surface: https://nscsports.org/facilities/stadium/
- Episode 215: The 2019 AKC Agility Premier Cup Presented by EEM
- Episode 220: AKC Agility Premier Cup Wrap-up
- Watch Jenn and Bee on all three rounds here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7cvPPmrt0Sc
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Speaker 1: Welcome to Bad Dog Agility, a podcast helping you reach all of your dog agility goals. Whether it's competing under the bright lights of the televised finals at Westminster, or successfully navigating a homemade course in your own backyard. We'll bring you training tips, interviews, and news about the great sport of dog agility. Are you ready?
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Speaker 1: The show starts with your host, Jennifer, Esteban and Sarah.
Jenn: I'm Jennifer.
Esteban: I'm Esteban.
Sarah: And I'm Sarah. And this is episode 345. Today's podcast is brought to you by Saint Rocco's Treats.
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Sarah: And you can find a link to Saint Rocco's Treats on the show notes page. Today we're going to be talking about the AKC Premier Cup. This is a invite only event. It's been going on, this is the fifth year. And Jennifer, you were there. So, Jennifer is going to be our resident experts on all things Premier Cup. So, let's start, Jennifer, what do we know about how you get an invite to the Premier Cup?
Esteban: Well, first I think we should say congratulations to Jennifer.
Sarah: Sure. All right. Let's start with congrats. So, first of all, this is the fifth event, and before the event, Jenn posted the coolest statistic. Tell us a little bit about your history with this particular event, Jenn.
Jenn: Yeah. This event's very special to me. I don't know why. Well, I'm about to tell you why, I guess. This is the fifth AKC Premier Cup, but it's not the fifth consecutive year. So, the first one was in 2019 and it was with that watch brand Longines. So, they came in and they were a sponsor for the event and it was very new. It was new to everybody. It was new to AKC, it was new to the exhibitors. We weren't really sure what to expect. Sarah, I know you were there. You came out there with me. It was in New York and it was this idea of being paired with a horse event. And then 2020, COVID hit, so there was no Premier Cup in 2020. And then we resumed it in '21, '22 and '23. And then here we are in '24.
And I have been invited every year, and that's really cool for me, not only have I been invited, but I've been invited with multiple dogs on some of the years. But the first four years, not only was I invited, but I actually was able to win the 16 inch division all four years with four different dogs. So, in 2019 we won the 16 inch class of pink. And then in '21 Swift, onto '22 was Lucky, '23 was B. And this year we did not take the win, but we had an absolutely magical run, one of those runs that just gives you goosebumps and finish in second place in the 16 inch class. So, it's just such a cool event to be able to go every year, to get an invite, I should start with that, to get an invite, then to be able to go, and then to have a good performance, make finals, and then have great performances, and have done it with a bunch of dogs.
So, prior to the event, I made a little post just talking about, I had been the only 16 inch winner up to that point, and very excitedly got to watch Jada kick butt in the 16 inch class with her Border Collie, Zula, who's on fire this year. She won AKC Nationals in the 16 inch class as well. It was really cool to watch her run, watch her win, stand right next to her, got to share the podium with her at AKC Nationals as well because she won and we took third. So, a really remarkable team, but I'm proud of B and my history with the event. And in the past, the winner and second place from the previous year get an invite.
Sarah: For the next time.
Jenn: You got it. So, because B got second place, fingers crossed that they keep up that tradition, so that will guarantee us an invite for next year. But to answer your original question of what we know about invites, I don't know that we know. So, it's sort of been different every year. I know the very first year it was truly invite by AKC, not based on results. All of the AWC team members got invited on that first year, along with some other big winners through AKC events. And then it seems like each year it's slightly different. I believe that most of it is coming from AKC National's results, AKC invitational results and the previous year's results. So, like I said, the previous years first and second place have always gotten an invite in the past. The winners at AKC Nationals get an actual invite and voucher in their awards. So when B got third, when I got my trophy and my ribbon, I got an invite there.
They pull a little bit from the results of the premier class at AKC National. So, I think the winners are some of the top placements come in, and then same thing with Invitational. And then very similar to the format at Invitational and at Westminster, preferred dogs are eligible, preferred dogs can get invites. They will jump their preferred height, but then they will be scored with their actual jump height. So, a dog who jumps preferred 12 inches will run 12 inches but be scored with the 16 inch dog. So, we have the preferred dogs added in there as well. And then it's a total of 20 dogs per jump height, that they have kept true to every year. So, it's a maximum of 100 dogs, with 20 dogs from each of the five jump heights.
Sarah: All right. Super interesting. And then the structure of the event is one jumper's course, obviously Premier, that's why it's called the Premier Cup. These are all Premier courses, in terms of course design style. So, one jumper is Premier, one Standard Premier, and then based on the combined results of those two classes, you have the finals class or the final event in the evening. And how many dogs make it into the finals?
Jenn: So, the Premier says 50%, which if you have 20 dogs should be 10, but they actually do 10 no matter what. So, this year in the 16 inch class, we had three dogs absent. So only 17 dogs were competing, but they still took 10 to the finals. And I think some of that has to do with the broadcasting. So, it is one of the events that AKC has paired with ESPN to broadcast. So, in their scheduling and in their timeline, they allot for the 10. So, the odds of making finals are higher than most events. And the partnership with ESPN and the broadcasting has not occurred every year. That's something that's relatively new. I know the very first year that we did it, there was no broadcasting or ESPN, but that is something that they do now.
Sarah: I think it was AKCTV that first year.
Jenn: That would make sense.
Sarah: Yeah.
Jenn: Yeah.
Sarah: Okay. So, now it's on ESPN and you got to talk to some of the ESPN people while you were there. So, dish.
Jenn: Yeah. So, the ESPN crew tends to be the same from event to event. So, because I always go to Nationals and I've been going to the Invitational the last couple years and the Premier Cup, I've gotten to know some of them. We see Terry Simons doing the commentary at most of these events, including Westminster. So, I talked to them all, a little bit about trying to get the scoop, where's the location next year? Do you like this site? Do you not like this site? How's the broadcasting going? And this year, from my understanding, ESPN has the primary say on the location of where the Premier Cup is held. So, it's not exclusive to AKC's call. The last two years it was in Columbus, which was great for me. It was like 30 minutes from home. This year it was in Blaine, Minnesota at a sports facility.
And I think a big part of it is they want the outdoor, so you're not going to see it indoor. They want outdoor, they want the good camera views, the big feel, better lighting. But I will say that this year's facility was less exciting, special, climatic than what we've had in the past, in my opinion. I felt like I was just sort of at a high school soccer field. There was no stadium or stands, except on the one side. Where last year, at the Cruise Stadium, we were at an MLS soccer stadium. It was 360 around were stands and the jumbotron, and it felt very big even though the stands weren't really filled, it felt big. And then we had a lot of locals that came in the evening. This year, not only did it not feel very big, there was very, very few spectators, even for the finals.
And I don't know if that's something where it's on AKC and ESPN to advertise to the locals or it just had to do with the agility community in that area. I know being close to Columbus, I did a huge push here in Columbus to let people know that they could come and watch. The surface was good. I would say the surface was pretty comparable to last year. It was the soccer turf, but with the rubber pellets, so not the carpet kind. It had the rubber pellets in it. Where in past years we've had, the last two years it was soccer turf, but it had a cork or coconut shell infill. In talking with the television crew, one of the concerns when they did their walkthrough was going to be the temperature of the turf. So, when they did their walkthrough, they would put their hands on the turf and try to feel how warm it was.
And that was a concern that they had with this site, is that because it was the black rubber, as opposed to the crew being the cork and being lighter in color, and texture, that it was going to be really hot. But we did not have warm temperatures in Minnesota. It actually was quite cool for a big part of the day. It was sunny, but it was cool. And then the big factor that we had this year, and this is what happens when you go outside, is the wind. The wind played a huge role in handling, scoring, courses this year with it being so windy at the event.
Sarah: Yeah. I saw several posts about that. And did it cause delays? I heard there were some delays and some spots and things like that.
Jenn: The problem that we were having with the wind is it was so strong it was blowing equipment over. So, in the walkthroughs it was blowing stuff over so much that they went around, and the best I could tell from watching them, they were using double-sided tape to tape the uprights to the ground, so that the uprights would not fall over. But this did not prevent bars from falling over. On one of my runs in the prelims, I was standing on the start line, the person in front of me was putting their leash on, and so we're all just standing sort of staring at them, sort of staring at me, and the first jump just blows over, the bars, not the up rights. And they all just were like, and I was like, okay, I guess we set that and they would come back and set the bars.
Basically, what they briefed us, and this happened in the finals as well, and it did come into play a bit was, if you're running the course and you get to an obstacle or specifically a jump and the bar has already fallen down because of the wind, proceed as normal, as long as your dog goes over the bar or between the uprights, just keep going and it will not be scored against you. So, there was some issues with regard to bars falling down, dogs having to go through uprights. I'm also not convinced that there wasn't some verbal issues with some of the dogs hearing. I saw some dogs do some funny things out of tunnels, multiple dogs, not even just one dog, where I think they get in the tunnel and if you imagine a wind tunnel, it gets loud. And there were at least two occasions, I can recall that I wondered if the dog wasn't sure what the handler was saying or where the handler was coming out of a tunnel.
And then when they were setting up for finals, they do a lot of decorative stuff. They put ferns out, they put these solid panels, it was just all over the place. At one point they said, "Oh, you guys can go look at the finals course," because it's in a separate ring. And we went over there and nobody knew the course because the cones were everywhere. They were found almost like buckets upside down. So, they had flipped over and were rolling all over the place. So, at one point we guessed what the course was, went to lunch because there's a big three-hour delay in the middle of the event, so we left and went to lunch and came back, and we had totally guessed wrong. We weave poles going the entire opposite direction from what we thought. So, I don't know if it actually caused any delays. From my end, it didn't seem to affect me, but it would be a problem, I guess, small delays where they had to have somebody run out and set a bar that had blown over or something.
Sarah: Right. That's so crazy. So, I'm looking here at the course maps as well. So, same judge for all three courses. Did she design all three or did they-
Jenn: Yes.
Sarah: Okay.
Jenn: My understanding is she designed and judged. So, they do it a little bit interesting, there's only one ring running at a time, but they do the prelims in a separate ring than finals. So, the finals rang very similar to how they did with AKC Nationals the year it was in Ocala. The finals ring was set up all week and in a separate building. So, it was in a separate area and it was all the big formal ESPN, the big stuff. And then the prelims were just like a normal ring and it was down a bit. So, we did jumpers first. Everybody walks and runs, then they do a course build and then standard, we walk and run. And then regardless of what time the prelims are done, they do not start anything in the finals ring until five o'clock. So, we had briefing at four o'clock. So, we finished up around one o'clock and then had that three hour break where there was nothing happening or going on. So, my understanding is that she did design them all, I assume so, but it was the same judge for all three courses.
Sarah: Awesome. And so what did you think about the courses? I watched your runs and I thought, obviously you running them, it looked beautiful, but it had really nice flow, I felt like. It was a well put together course. Is that how it felt?
Jenn: I would say that the finals course specifically I actually thought was easier than what I was prepared for. But that's not to say that it was easy. I actually thought it was very nice course, it had great distances. If you haven't had a chance to watch it will air on ESPN, July 28. It had some great distances, some really good flow. The one thing, and I'll come back and talk about it in a bit, but I did not have to do a single front cross in finals. And if you know me, you know I love my front crosses. So, it was very flowy. It wasn't twisty, turny, crank the dogs down. So, it wasn't easy. It was just easier than I was prepared for, having studied Michelle's courses a lot, up to that point. As far as the courses as a whole, the thing that I will say is I studied Michelle's courses a lot.
I studied her courses and prepped for this Premier Cup, probably more than any other Premier Cup. And some of the things that I consider her trademark moves or things she does a lot she didn't do. So, I'm like, "Man, I did all this prep and we didn't see the things that I thought we would see." But I thought the courses were good. The finals course was definitely the smoothest and the most open, but I did feel like all of the courses presented what I would expect for a Premier Cup that is designed to mimic the premier classes for AKC.
Sarah: Awesome.
Jenn: So, going back to the finals course and the no front crosses, the other little story there is, I travel to most of these big events with my best friend, Abby Beasley. Those of you that know me or follow the podcast, I probably heard me mention her name. Well, less than two weeks before the event, she was training for EO outside and fell in a hole, twisted her ankle, ended up on crutches. So, here we have this trip planned and basically about, I don't know, four days before we were supposed to go, she realized it's not looking good for my ankle to be better. We better start practicing to see if her dog would run for me. Now, her dog is a half sibling to B, so we're best friends, we travel.
Well, Friday was a little rocky. We were at a local show. Some of the runs she ran for me and some of the runs that she didn't run for me. So, we weren't sure what was going to happen when we got to Minnesota and our plan was to just take it run by run. And the first course, the jumper force was just way too twisty, turny. Abby walked it and was like, there's too much twisting and turning and cutting, and crosses that needed to happen and sprinting. She's like, "You're going to have to do where my ankle can't hold up." And then she ran for me and got second place. So, we're like, "[inaudible 00:16:42]. This is good." Then we go to Standard and we were on the fence, and Abby's like, "I think I got one run in me." But the problem is if I use it up in Standard and then she makes finals, then what?
Because once she ran for Abby, she probably was not going to switch back to me. She loves agility with her mom. She doesn't love agility enough to run with anybody. B is the least loyal dog. Anybody can take her and run her, and she would be fine. So, I did her in standard and got her around that clean as well. But then when we walked the finals course, we walked the finals course and we looked at each other and we're like, "We don't have to do any fronts." Abby's like, "I think I can do this. I can do this with all rears and blinds." And if you think about the twisting of an ankle, there's not a lot of twisting and happening on rears and blinds. You're running more straight line-ish.
And so she was able to actually take her dog back to finals and run her own dog in finals, which was a huge stress reliever for me, let me tell you. But also really exciting that she got to run her own dog. So, even though she didn't do any front crosses because of her ankle, I had no limitations and even I didn't do any front crosses. So, just a testament to the flow of the finals course, but also a fun little story. If anybody said, I thought Jenn ran that dog in prelims, I did run the dog in prelims and then handed her back over for finals. So, that was a new experience for me.
Sarah: So, then what happened in Standard? You skipped over that part.
Jenn: Well, I ran her. I ran her and we were clean.
Sarah: All right. And clean. Nice.
Jenn: We have a few screenshots where the dog was over a jump and looking behind going, where's Mom? And I would certainly say her times were not anywhere close to what she would've been for her mom, but she did run for me. And at the end of the run, there was a little moment where I was trying to put her on leash where she started to go, "Wait a minute. You're not my mom." But she didn't run out of the ring. No rules were broken.
Sarah: Stranger danger.
Jenn: Yeah. She was like, "Where's mom? Where's mom?" So, we got through. But I was happy to hand her over for finals, to be honest.
Esteban: Yeah. Maybe you can put a link to Jennifer's finalist run.
Sarah: Oh, absolutely. Yeah.
Esteban: It was remarkable.
Jenn: It was awesome.
Esteban: Unbelievable.
Jenn: I'm so proud of it. It was not a win. It was far from a win. I think we were over a second off the win and it was one of those runs that just, for me, was absolutely magical. I've had wins that I'm not even as proud of as that run. And B just was spot on. I've watched the run over and over, and over and there's nothing that I want to change. There's not a single place where she added a stride that I didn't want. There wasn't a single spot where she went wider on a turn. There were some spots that teams were having some, that gasp moment, where you were a little worried. I would argue that even Jada had a few moments where I went, "Oh my gosh. Okay. All right. Get it back up. Oh, that's a little bit of a wide turn."
And she beat me. And B's run was just absolutely magical. I'm so proud of her and so proud of that run because we had to do rear crosses and if you know me, they're scary for me. And she had two absolutely beautiful rear crosses that I'm very proud of. It was a really good event.
Esteban: It was a full wrap. It was after the dog walk, jump, after the dog walk, full wrap, beautifully executed.
Sarah: It was the first thing I said after the run was, I was like, "That turn after the dog walk. Gorgeous."
Jenn: It was so good. I did it at the warmup jump a lot. Because I was like, "Oh, okay." And she did it so well at the warmup jump. And then as I ran the course, I actually was far enough ahead, I could have done a blind. And in the moment I'm running down the dog walk and I'm going, I could do the blind. And I went, "No. She warmed up this skill perfect." She warmed it up so good. I'm going to commit to it, because I didn't warm up the blind and I'm just going to do it. And then when she did it perfectly, I was like, "Oh, thank goodness." I was confirmed in my decision in the moment. But all of that went through my head and the second and a half it took her to do the dog walk.
Sarah: Well, now I'm going to have to watch it again and see if I can see a little hitch in your step where you decide, wait [inaudible 00:20:44].
Jenn: Yeah. A couple dogs before me, Bonnie had run Edward. I told her about this afterwards. She made the blind and I was thinking about her. I was running, going, "Bonnie made the blind. I'm now ahead, I can do the blind." And I went, no, you practiced the rear at the warmup jump, commit to the rear cross. Just make it happen. So, it was a good event. I did try to sneak out information on maybe where it would be held next year. They have no idea. They didn't give me or they alluded to the fact that they have no idea. But the format and everything, I thought ran very similar to past years. There was no big earth shattering change. AKC does a great job with it. They have it down. Five years, they know how it's going to work, what it's going to do.
We still don't quite know how invites are done. I do know that this year they made sure to have one junior handler per height as well. I don't know if the junior handler was pulled at random. I'm suspecting that the junior handler might have been the winner from the Junior Invitational in December. And I think that was something that was new. I don't know that they've had a junior handler in every height in the past. I also know that ESPN was doing a little bit of a junior handler spotlight. So, they did some interviews and some stuff, and I suspect when we see the broadcasting, there'll be an emphasis on the various juniors that made finals and interviews, and stuff. Yeah. It seems like they've kind of got it down in terms of the format and how they like doing it.
It is a lot for a one day event. That's the biggest thing that a lot of the competitors say is, you're traveling, I know one person travel 18 hours one way for what could have been two runs, prelim jumpers, prelim standard, and by one o'clock they're over. And you're on site for four hours or you're in the city for 18 hours for an 18 hour drive and an 18 hour drive home. But for me personally, given the demands that agility has on our schedule these days with more and more big events, and these events getting longer and everything, I appreciate a one day event because I can fit it in easier. So, for me, I appreciate it. But I had pretty easy and smooth travels to and from all of the Premier Cups up to this point. So, I suspect at some point they'll want to move it around, maybe go back to Florida, maybe head out to the West Coast. But I thought this year went really smoothly as an exhibitor and I hope to see the event continue going forward.
Sarah: Yeah. I'm looking forward to seeing how it comes across on ESPN. Always love seeing it on Network TV and I think ESPN is essentially the premier network for sports related content. So, I think it's nothing but good for our sport. And I think that we'll see with it being on Network TV that we continue to see increased excitement around our sport, which I think is, obviously, a good thing for the growth of the sport. So, before we wrap up, let's go ahead and list out the winners from this AKC 2024 Premier Cup. We have in the 8-inch class, Andrea Samuels with Gabby, a Papillon. In the 12-inch class, Cynthia Horner with Nimble an All American. In the 16-inch class, as you mentioned, we had Jada Sani with Zula, a Border Collie and the 20-inch class Juliana Munden with Border Collie, Fusion. And in the 24-inch class, Rachel Avers with Gator, who actually came in the preferred class and is a Labrador Retriever. So, congratulations to all of this year's winners.
And that's it for this week's podcast. We'd like to thank our sponsors, Saint Rocco's Treats and hititboard.com. Check out the Teeter Teach It only at hititboard.com. The Teeter Teach It is an easy to use tool that controls the amount of tip on your teeter, so you can introduce motion to your dog in a gradual way. Go to hititboard.com for the new Teeter Teach It and other training tools and toys. Use discount code BDA10 to get 10% off your order. That's hititboard.com. Happy training.
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