Well this year was the first time the Retriever World Cup has come to Wales.

The outstanding picturesque estate at Glan Usk was the venue overlooking some of the most outstanding landscape in Wales.

Nigel Probert, the course designer had done a fantastic job with very challenging long retrieves on Llangynidr moor on the first day. He used the full location of the estate and river Usk for the technical retrieves on the second day. What an excellent job.

At the gala dinner on Saturday night, teams from all over Europe were entertained in the land of song by the Bois Goitre Wen Male voice choir. That was an event in itself.

Now onto the event

The ever consistent Scotland, winners for the second time in succession. England came a very close second and Denmark in third.

Wales trailed this year in 9th place, a big disappointment but things just didn’t go well for the home team. At the end of the first day Welsh dogs were prominent with Vickie Stanley leading the field closely followed by Alan Rees and Hayden Willmott. Mike Jones found things a little difficult for his young dog.

The second day followed much the same pattern with failures for Mike, Hayden and Vickie but on a course like this there were numerous bunkers to be overcome.

Hopefully we all have learnt from the experience and will benefit from it in future events.

A big thank you from the team, we all appreciated the support from numerous gundog people that had turned out to support us as well as some of the best dogs and handlers in the world.

On behalf of the team I would like to thank Ceri, Phil and all at CSJ for their continued support.

Diolch,

Alan Rees

Wales Team Captain