| Finnish
Open
Since 1992 an enormous Agility event has taken
part over a weekend in July somewhere in Finland. There are many
trials on offer:
Finnish Open Championship Finnish Open Championship
is just that: open to pedigree dogs and crossbreeds and dog/handler
teams competing on different levels. The trial is made up of an
official course plus the Final. From each category the 5 best level
I, 12 best level II and 25 best level III dog/handler teams are
invited to the Final later that day. The Final winners (one in each
category) are nominated Finnish Open Champions. In recent years
over 500 dog/handler teams have tried their best in the official
courses to be eligible for the Final course.
Finnish Open Junior, Intermediate
& Senior Championships
As a separate competition during the same weekend,
some “special” groups have the chance to prove their worth
among their own age peers.
- Juniors (for handlers under 15 years
of age)
- Nuorille (for handlers between 15 and
17 years of age)
- Seniors ( 50 years and over)
Agirotu Carnival
The most popular section of the Finnish Open
weekend is no doubt the Agirotu Carnival (“Agibreed”),
that is a relay race for teams consisting of 4 dogs of the same
breed.
Each team consists of 4 dogs of exactly the same
breed (meaning that the FCI breed code must be the same: some breeds
are divided into sections according to size or color). The number
of handlers is not specified: most often there is one per dog, but
there has been at least one team where one man handled all the dogs…
There are two classes:
- ALO (beginning dogs) only one of the
dogs may have started in an official trial before
- KILP (competing dogs) 2 or more eof
the dogs have competed in official trials before the weekend
The categories are MINI, MEDI & MAXI. This
year the teams may be put together with one dog of a “bordering”
category. A MINI-team could thus have one MEDI-dog in it, a MIDI-team
one MINI or MAXI, and a MAXI team one MEDI-dog, if necessary. Each
team may (and indeed should) nominate a spare dog or two that will
fill in in case of an injury, a bitch being in heat etc.
In Agirotu relay race no one is disqualified,
and this lends a positive note to the whole event. Each course fault
is converted into 5 extra seconds that are added to the course time.
Adding 10 extra seconds to the course time punishes each mistake
normally leading to disqualification (say, a wrong obstacle). In
effect, the result for each team can be recorded by minutes and
seconds only. The team with the smallest “added course time”
is the winner.
Most of the teams go into lots of trouble to
portray their breed with funny costumes that they may wear the whole
day.
Translation: Mari Hurskainen
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