President and dogs collar titles

Clark Chrystal with some of his team at home on the farm at Tutira, where he says he has more dogs than sheep. Photo / Duncan Brown

The man in the chair turned out to be the man of the moment as Hawke's Bay Sheep Dog Trial Centre president Clark Chrystal scored a rare double at his centre's annual championships.

Chrystal won titles in the long head and the straight hunt on Sunday, with Boyd and Trix respectively. At the Okawa club championships over the previous two days, doubling as the championship run-offs qualifying rounds, they won the long head and zig zag hunt respectively.

His only previous centre title was with huntaway Harvey at Tikokino in 2006. It was up there with his achievements with Hendrix, which won the North Island straight hunt run-off and was runner-up in the national final at Te Aute in 2009, and a year later reached all four hunt run-offs at the South Island and New Zealand championships in Southland, including runner-up in both straight hunts.

"I guess the ultimate would be to win a head and a hunt," he said. "To get all the ducks (er, sheep) in line on the same day ... you're doing pretty well."

It is rare to win heading and huntaway trials at one championships, although he supposes it must have been done before. It is less rare for presidents to be winning the events, immediate-past Hawke's Bay president Bob Bruce and his immediate predecessor Paul Robinson being two who remain at the forefront.

While Boyd's championship win on Sunday was true to the weekend's earlier form, Trix lived more up to the name, winning the centre title after failing to make the top five in the club event.

Trix was, however, also third in the zig zag hunt, after winning the club title in that class, in what has been a great start to the season. A week earlier, Trix won the straight hunt and was third in the zig zag hunt, at home club Waikoau in the opening Hawke's Bay club trial of 2015.

In Chrystal's own words, it was "not too bad" a result for a kennel where the dogs more or less outnumber the number of sheep he runs on a farm which has been in the Chrystal family for almost a century.

It is about 7km west of State Highway 2 at Tutira, between Napier and Wairoa.

"I'd have a dozen dogs," said Chrystal, who keeps only about 12 sheep, and who in the mornings before going off to the trials is far more likely to be found milking the cows than giving the dog a bone.

There were, he reckons, no great "secrets" behind the weekend wins on the Okawa club's course off Matapiro Rd, Crownthorpe.

"I don't think I've won there before," he said. "But I'm never surprised. It's what you enter for."

Chrystal was never into rugby or other sporting activities. He was running dogs before he was out of his teens and said: "Hunting and dog trials, that's about me."

He started with dog called Claude, a "beardy" he reckons would have been the best he has had, but for its master's over-exuberance.

Wind on 20 or so years, with Welsh wife Sian, a son and three daughters to keep the farming ticking over during his absences, the dog trialling season is just starting to roll.

Chrystal plans to be at most of the centre's 11 other trials, the season continuing at Omakere tomorrow and Saturday. He also has judging roles at three events outside the centre, including the Taranaki centre championships near Stratford next month.

There may be a lot of roads to travel, but they all lead to the ultimate goal, the North Island and National Championships at Moawhango on the Napier-Taihape road, starting on May 25.

-Okawa club and Hawke's Bay championship results, Page 28