Cambridgeshire Flyball’s dog racing team takes second at prestigious Crufts show
A county dog racing team is celebrating success at the world-renowned Crufts.
Cambridgeshire Flyball is celebrating after coming second in the finals at the world-renowned dog show at the NEC in Birmingham – being beaten to first place by the sport’s current record holders.
The team which is based and trains on the outskirts of Chatteris is captained by Ellen Schofield, whose dog Kylo was among the high-ranking team that took on the best and saw success.
Cambridgeshire Flyball was launched in 2007 and has developed a lot over the last 17 years.
Ellen said: “The group we are now, is a lot different to what we were like back then.”
The team qualified for Crufts in October last year but suffered a major setback when one of the canine members Ossie, a three-year-old Border Collie belonging to Ian Richens sadly died on Christmas Eve last year.
The team has seven members – six competitors and one reserve – and while most of the team are whippet crosses of some kind, the rules state there must be at least one pure breed in the line-up as a Border Collie Ossie was one of the two Cambridgeshire Flyball had.
Putting the tragedy behind them the team made up of Texan belonging to Pete George, Cheetah belonging to Sarah Robson, Prime belonging to Nicole Webster, Vegas belonging to Mat Polley, Storm belonging to Mell Wareham, and Ellen’s dog Kylo, stayed positive and raced their hearts out to take second place.
The team had previously qualified to the last 16, who get to compete over two knock-out sessions, to qualify for the final eight. Having made the cut beating Junk Yard Dogs from Doncaster on Friday, the local side saw themselves against the Commanders, from the North East, and again were victorious.
On Sunday they were up against the Aces, who have just recently been the subject of a Channel 4 series. Again the Cambridgeshire side were the winners and so faced the current world champions, a team from Belgium in the final. Sadly they ran out of luck to be placed second.
But Ellen said the team was ecstatic with their success and is now looking forward to competing in the World Championships in Belgium later this summer.
