You Make the Call
I was boxloading for a team during the U-FLI Southeastern Qualifier and made a stupid error during a key race. The two teams racing were vying for 1st and 2nd place and this one key race would place the teams. To keep the teams anonymous, I will just call them team A, which was running in the right lane and team B, was in the left lane. I was boxloading for team B and the racing format was 3 of 3.
Team B was just a little faster than team A, but sometimes the faster team doesn’t always come out on top.
Heat 1
Both teams ran clean and team B easily took the win.
Heat 2
This is where the boxloader, me, made the stupid mistake. The first dog in the lineup on my side consistently pushed off the box very hard causing it to be very crooked. Both the first and second dog took the ball from the left hole so they turned the same way. I didn’t want the box to be that crooked for the second dog because I thought that he might bobble the ball or it might hurt his turn with the box that crooked. So I loaded his ball, a small ball I might add, and nudged the box to straighten it. The dog was a almost to the box when I did this and the ball rolled out of the large hole, down the front of the box, and rolled out onto the mat. The dog didn’t miss a beat, scooped the ball up off the mat, did a perfect box turn, and returned to his handler. I did not see the box judge raise the flag nor did the head judge see the infraction. The third and four dogs completed their runs and easily took the win.
I looked over at the box judge and there was no reaction. However, there was some stirring from team A - someone had undoubtedly seen what had happened on my side and told the head judge. The head judge came back to the box judge, asked if there was a flag and the box judge said that there was, and told the head judge what had happened. I could hear the head judge ask why the flag wasn’t raised but I didn’t hear the answer.
The head judge went to team B’s captain and explained what happened and gave the win to team A.
Heat 3
Both teams ran clean but team B’s last dog had a late pass and team A took the win.
Controversial Call
As you can imagine, there was a lot of controversy over the call. Did the head judge make the right call in this key race? Since the head judge didn’t see the fault and the box judge didn’t notify or tell the head judge right after the heat that there was a problem, should the heat have been rerun?
You Make the Call - Box Judge Controversy
- 1. The head judge should have rerun the heat. (42%, 22 Votes)
- 2. The head judge made the right call and there was no need to rerun the heat. (55%, 29 Votes)
- 3. Not Sure (4%, 2 Votes)
Total Voters: 53
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Larry
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13 comments ↓
Playing “Devil’s advocate”, doesn’t this also fall under the heading it’s only a violation of the rule if you are caught by one of the judges?
Personally, while I would be upset we lost the heat, and ultimately the race, we are playing a game and, while I am SUPER competitive, I want to win legitimately, and not because someone missed a call.
I have to say that I feel the same way about winning legitimately. We have even gone so far as to tell the judge after the race that during one of the heats there was no ball in the box for one of the dogs. We lost the race and first place in the tournament because of it but it was the right thing to do.
Really, the question here is whether the judge should have rerun the heat since it wasn’t flagged. The head judge never asks me anything. If they did, I would have told the judge what had happen, and was ready to do so but I was never approached.
I have to agree with both of you; I would have not wanted the win. I might have even told the head judge what happened myself if I was on that team.
None of the team members saw what happen. They all thought that they had won the heat. Like I said it happened very fast and the dog did his box turn and returned with the ball.
U-FLI rulebook, 2.7 Heats “The dog
must trigger the flyball box before retrieving the ball ejected from the box and must return over each
jump,…”.
I feel that in this scenario, the dog did not complete this step - obviously no fault of his own.
The judge should have conferred with the box judge and the boxloader.
As to the boxloader not raising a flag - there is no formal education or qualification requirement for this position. While it is a quite tedious task, there are those moments when split second decisions are called for.
The other team noticed the infraction and correctly brought it to the head judges attention.
The heat should have been deemed “No Finish” after the fact and recorded as such.
While this response is argued from “technicalese”, do remember that this sport involves people and animals.
I feel for you, Larry, having been the reason for the tough break. We do the best we can.
As to the One versus Two, there are boxes that have small holes for small balls, should the owning team feel it critical to the outcome of their season.
sounds like a case of box judge fatigue. I’ve seen some pretty horrible box judges, but it’s easy to get bored and zone out when you’ve been sitting there for hours watching the dogs go down and back …down and back. I think the judge made the right call, but I’m all in favor of teams agreeing to limit the amt of time someone has to box judge. Since I only run one dog this delightful task often falls on me, and novice judges training requires 25 consecutive races . . . oh the boredom.
This is how I feel about it. IT IS an “Oops!” on the box and head judge part that it wasn’t called but as it was pointed out, they are only human. It was brought to the judge’s attention immediately to be corrected.
The fault did occur. The dog had to re-run as stated in the rulebook. It’s not a “maybe it occurred”. If it was a “maybe”, I can see the judge re-running the heat.
Now, if the error was called, would team B been able to beat team A? Probably not. If team B had saw the fault, would they re-run? Maybe, maybe not but probably still would not have won against team A especially if team A didn’t make an error. Team B could not have won because they had to re-run a dog.
Would re-running the heat help? Don’t know. It could of given them the win? Maybe. But winning heat #3 would of also given them the win too. (Honestly, I think heat 3 was the “key” race not heat 2.)
In the long run. What can you say? It could of played out many ways. But things happens. That’s life.
Plus, I think team B would not have wanted the win because it was not legitimate.
Fortunately, the other team, didn’t flag. Then you would have the issue of reruns to contend with in this situation.
Reminds me of the worst call I’ve ever seen.
We were running in a 4/4 situation, and in contention for 1st place in Div 2. We ran a personal best for our club in the last heat of the day. the other team flagged on their first pass and held their dogs, so they didn’t finish the heat.
Fifteen minutes after the heat, with both teams back at their crating area, the TD and judge asked me where one of our team members was . I was captain, but since he was apprentice judging, I guess they thought he was.
Anyways, the judge asked if “Joe”(made up name”) had dropped a ball at the line during the heat and the ball had rolled over the start/finish line. He said he may have since his dog comes back to a ball.
The judge then said he had to call it, and awarded the heat to the other team.
This was wrong on so many levels I had to laugh when I was told. We weren’t given a flag at the time, and so couldn’t rerun even though we should have been entitled to. The other team never finished the heat. The rules allow handlers to cross the line to retrieve stray balls so I’m not sure a stray ball should be flagged, and making the call 15 minutes after a heat was ridiculous.
In any event, we won our division, and as far as we were concerned, that was our personal best time, at least until the next tournament.
We’ve had many good/lucky/bad calls. I always figure if we get a bad call it’ll balance out with a lucky call where nobody notices a mistake, or a good call where the judge makes a very fair decision. At least the judge verified that the box judge was asleep at the wheel with the flag & that they did see it. Mostly we are too laid back about flyball to really want to fight about it. Hey as long as we all live to race another day.
I’ve seen other instances where the judge checks with the box/line judge & the judge has no idea what happened or why it was not legal etc.
Now the boxloader should be FLOGGED, with a slimy tug for such an error. NUDGING the box!
A missed call does not mean that it doesn’t exist. The judge made an appropriate call for the situation.
Had there been a flag in the other lane, then the issue of rerun as suggested by another poster would have come to question and then a rerun possible. But in this instance the judge made an appropriate call.
If a mistake made by a judge, competitor, etc does not in the end affect the outcome of the heat, there is absolutely no reason to rerun it.
- Now the boxloader should be FLOGGED, with a slimy tug for such an error. NUDGING the box!
Gee thanks!
I really felt bad for such a stupid mistake.
this is why I really respect the job a judge has to do. These are difficult calls.
IF clearly flagging the violation at the time of the violation COULD have changed the result of the race (win/lose) then the race should have been re-run.
A flag is waved to communicate to a team that they have a violation and that they will need to re-run that dog to complete the race. In this case if Team A ran clean then even if Team B had received the visual flag notification, it would not have changed the outcome that Team A completed first.
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