The nearby countdown clock reads two minutes. Plenty of time to corral these Utah free-range sheep. The crowd is quiet, as if Tiger Woods was putting.
But as the seconds tick off, the stubborn sheep stand immobile. When one breaks away, Bill circles around to bring it back in line. The clock runs out and the sheep remain outside the pen.
"I should have had it," Lambert, from Connecticut, said Saturday after she and Bill finished their run in the Soldier Hollow Classic, a four-day invitational tournament for the world's best sheepdogs held annually at the former Olympic cross-country venue.
Lambert is a veteran of this competition. Bill took the silver medal last year, and her dog Pippa won gold in 2004 and 2005. Lambert is also running a 2-year-old, Mirk, for the first time, but this competition "is above his pay grade."
Event coordinator Mark Petersen said the sheep at this year's Classic, which continues today and Monday, are tougher than ever.
"They're Utah range sheep," Petersen said. "They essentially fend for themselves against coyotes and mountain lions. . . .They will test the dog. They will turn and challenge the dog, especially when it's a first-time meeting. . . . As far as they're concerned, it's an oddly marked coyote asking them to do something."
"The sheep level the playing field," said Herbert Holmes, a sheepdog handler from Sanderson, Texas.
Lambert agreed, with a laugh: "They leveled me."
The object of the competition is to have a dog guide five sheep from a hillside, through a series of challenges, and into a pen - all within 13 minutes. (In Monday's final round, the course is longer and more sheep are involved.) The course challenges both the handler's finesse in commanding the dog with whistles, and the dog's finesse in moving the sheep without stressing them out.
"You must put enough pressure, but not too much," said Faansie Basson, a champion dog handler from South Africa who placed first in Friday's preliminaries with his 9-year-old female border collie Jan. "If it's not enough, they'll turn around on the dog. If it's too much, they'll just [run off]."
That seemed to be the problem for Tess, a 5-year-old female border collie. Tess moved her sheep quickly down the hill and past her handler, through two gates and back to the shearing ring, where the dog must separate two sheep from the other three and control them.
Tess had three minutes left, seemingly plenty of time. But the sheep scattered around the outside of the pen. Frustrated, Tess bit one - earning an instant disqualification.
Events are open to any breed, Holmes said, but nearly all competitors at this level are border collies. "Every great once in a while, a Australian kelpie shows up," Holmes said.
Spectators could number 20,000 over the four-day event, if the weather holds.
The event, in its sixth year, features other activities: duck-wrangling for more urban dogs, animal demonstrations for children, and food vendors with ethnic variations of lamb - including Scottish, Greek and Navajo.
And a "Splash Dogs" competition invites dogs of all sorts to long-jump into a pool of water.
"You have to have a dog that isn't afraid of water, and has a strong drive to get a toy," said Christy Drake, of Clinton, Utah. Salix, her 5-year-old Chesapeake Bay retriever, jumped 25 feet - short of his personal best of 26 feet, 4 inches.
spmeans@sltrib.com
Competition continues
The Soldier Hollow Classic Sheepdog Competition continues today and Monday at Soldier Hollow, off of State Road 113 in Wasatch County, west of Heber. The third day of preliminary competition begins at 8 a.m. today and runs until 6 p.m. The finals begin Monday at 9 a.m., with the final run at 4 p.m. Tickets for today's events are $12 for adults, $11 for senior citizens, $7 for children ages 6-15 and free for children 5 and under. Tickets for Monday's finals are $15 for adults, $13 for senior citizens, $7 for children ages 6-15, and free for children 5 and under. For tickets and more information, visit www.soldierhollowclassic.com.
