THE Campbell family, Bannockburn, stole show at the Koroit Dog Trials last week, after nabbing all the major wins against 140 competitors.
It was border collie litter-mates Glamorgan Oscar and Glamorgan Roy, handled by husband and wife duo Greg and Davine Campbell, who won the open and improver section with 187 and 175 points respectively.
The Campbells were also second in the open section for O'Kane's Trudy on 175 points.
Trial organiser Barry Paton said the close scoring and high standard of working dogs in the final put pressure on the handlers who could not afford to make mistakes.
"The standard of entrants was very high with some of the best workers here," Mr Paton said.
"The final standard of dogs was extremely high and when you get good competition like that, it puts pressure on everyone to try harder like a big grand final match."
The handlers of the 140 open/improver and 57 novice entrants hailed from as far as Queensland and Western Australia, with the majority coming from across NSW and South Australian borders.
The Campbells were first seen on the trial circuit almost 10 years ago in a farmers trial and had not taken out the prestigious Koroit title before.
"Greg has come a fair way from the farmers trial with his handling of working dogs," Mr Paton said.
"He had some good runs that lost minimal points."
It was down to the line in the novice section, with two of Australia's most well-known handlers Greg Prince, Dubbo, NSW and Jim Dogde, Snake Valley having a finals run-off with their equal score of 154 points.
It was Maurie-Lynne Skid, handled by Jim Dodge, who performed under pressure with a final score of 257 over Greg Prince's border collie China's Gift who finished on 184 points.
"It is not that often that we get two dogs on the same score," Mr Paton said.
"To me Greg Prince and Jim Dodge are the two top workers in Australia and are well known for their national dog trial titles so to have those two blokes in the run off was proving how high the standard of competition was."
– ANNABELLE BEALE
