Salinas-Monterey Agility Racing Team

The rumors are true! SMART is having a December show. After few fits and starts, we've uploaded the premiums for our December 27-29 show at Thorson's Arena to the SMART website (still waiting for the premiums to be reflected on the USDAA and UKI websites).

Saturday and Sunday feature UKI and USDAA. UKI US Open judge McKenzie Minto will be designing and judging the UKI courses on Saturday and Sunday, and Leslie Bickel will be designing and judging the USDAA courses on Saturday, Sunday and Monday.

Saturday's schedule includes:
UKI - Open Gamblers, S/C and B/N Agility, Masters Series Agility and Open Speedstakes
USDAA - Starters and Masters Jumpers, Snooker, Steeplechase and Biathlon Jumpers

Sunday's schedule includes:
UKI - S/C and B/N Jumping, Masters Series Jumping and S/C and B/N Speedstakes
USDAA - Starters and Masters Standard, Gamblers, Biathlon Standard, Combined Pairs and Grand Prix

Monday will feature USDAA 2-Dog Team

Event info can be found at:
https://smartagility.com/events/index.html

UKI premium:https://smartagility.com/events/docs/20251227/SMARTUKI20251227.pdf

USDAA premium:https://smartagility.com/events/docs/20251227/SMARTUSDAA20251227.pdf

RV sign up:
https://forms.gle/6eaFbCmBhTiKuPDd8

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The SMART premiums for our August show are now available on the SMART website as well as the USDAA and UKI websites. The show will be at Manzanita Park in Prunedale on August 1-3. It will be held in conjunction with the Peninsula Australian Shepherd Association ASCA show that same weekend! Friday will be USDAA followed by two days of UKI on Saturday and Sunday

Friday USDAA:
Judged by Roger Ly

We are experimenting with a change to classes offered at our USDAA shows. If you attended the June show, you will remember that we are looking at possibly limiting or eliminating the Advanced titling classes at our shows. At most shows, the Advanced classes are composed of 1-4 total dogs, and having the class ends up adding 30-45 minutes per class, sometimes for just one dog. As those who have done USDAA for a while have noticed, the Advanced class is this weird class that is either not much more than Starters, or just slightly easier than Masters, and in many cases, a lot less flowy and friendly to dogs. Also, in the past couple of years, USDAA has made it an option for dogs to enter any level that they feel prepared for -- with many dogs skipping directly to Masters since that's what they are training in classes these days.

So, for this show, we will be offering all five titling classes (Standard, Jumpers, Gamblers, Snooker and Relay), but only offering Starters/P1 and Masters/P3/V levels for these classes. This helps eliminate four classes and 2+ hours in the day. We will also offer Grand Prix and Steeplechase.

Have a question on which level you should enter? Please feel free to reach out and we can help figure it out for you.

Saturday/Sunday UKI:
Designed by Peyton Green and Sangie Brooks
Judged by Roger Ly

We are excited to have some fun courses designed by Peyton and Sangie at the show. For those who are going to the US Open in Florida this year, this would be a great time to get some experience on courses designed by two of the judges at the event. Both days will offer Agility, Jumping, Speedstakes and Gamblers at the B/N and S/C levels (Sunday's Gamblers class will be an Open class -- all levels). Also, we will be offering Masters Series on Saturday and Biathlon on Sunday.

Practice Ring:
We will be offering a practice ring at the show. Cost will be $20/day or $40 for the entire weekend. Please bring cash to pay at the show.

Volunteers needed:
We could use a crew chief for each day of the show. We could also use a course builder at the show. Crew chief and course builder will get one free entry for their dog for each day that they volunteer. Entry can be split across multiple dogs if desired. Full-timers would also be appreciated. If you would like to come and help gate, set bars, leash run or whatever for a full day, we will comp $75/day.

SMART: Salinas-Monterey Agility Racing Team August 1 - 3, 2025, Manzanita Park, Prunedale UKI Designing Judges: Peyton Green and Sangie Brooks UKI & USDAA Judge: Roger Ly USDAA Premium UKI Premium RV Sign Up

Happy and tired. Fire's face captures how I feel right now. Stopped in Southern Oregon on my way to the Canadian Open but I wanted to thank everyone who came out to the Salinas-Monterey Agility Racing Team show this weekend.

We tried something a little different to get a little bit of everything for those were were looking to try different flavors of agility. For the most part, it went well, but we may have been a tad bit ambitious with the schedule, especially Sunday when the last dog finished running after 6pm. After teardown, a few of the hardcore people left the park at 9:15!!!

Anyways, I wanted to first thank Dave Grubel for designing some fun courses this weekend. I spent Saturday afternoon and Sunday judging one of the rings so I got a front row seat for some challenges I would've loved to run. Fire did play on a fast and run Speedstakes course as white dog and gave it four paws up.

Thank you to everyone who helped out to keep things moving all weekend. Everyone who set a bar, ran a leash, helped build a course -- you all are appreciated.

Thank you to Katherine Lai, Laura Hartwick and Kathy Quiroz for helping staff the rings, and Erika Maurer for helping with the ribbons. Big thanks to Kelly Chaffin, Dustin Kerwin and Mike Scannell for all your help building courses. And thanks to our full timers Karey Krauter (on Saturday) and Mardee and Raymond Jang.

To everyone who stayed to help pack the trailers, thank you sooooo much! I'm afraid to miss anyone, and if I did, it was completely unintentional: Jennifer Carlisle Voelkel, Kelly, Mike, Debbie Ogg, Julie Craig and everyone else.

And as always, thank you so much Katrina Parkinson and Tracy M. Duncan for everything you do to make the show run, before, during and after it is over. And for keeping me sane. And for being there until the bitter end (and having the chance to look at the stars afterwards)

One night in Oregon, another in Washington and then crossing the border to BC and Chilliwack for the Canadian Open this weekend!

Photo credit to Sarah Hitzeman

We wanted to let you know that we are cancelling our July SMART show next month.

There are a variety of reasons for the cancellation, including the competing UKI Festival in the PNW followed by a USDAA Regional in the same area. In addition, there are a number of recent and upcoming USDAA/UKI shows that we worry would lead to burn out from competitors and hurt overall entries to a point where we couldn't likely hold the show without an overall loss, financially for the club.

We are going to focus our energy on our August show in Prunedale and our big NYE show at Thorson's.

Stay tuned for information about both shows!

Hey, can whoever is currently the admin of this page remove me as an admin? I can't figure out how to do it, and I am extremely unlikely to ever be acting as admin here anymore. (signed, Ellen Finch)