Justin Pinner and the mighty Quinn

Justin Pinner’s goal is The Supreme in sheep dog trials

Justin Pinner of Westbury and his champion sheepdog Quinn have gone through many trials together, coming up winners, both in competition and in life.

Good dog! Quinn the champion sheepdog.
Photos supplied

Sharon Webb

THE SUPREME is coming to Tasmania in October and so is The Test. Westbury’s Justin Pinner wants to win both.

The skilled sheep dog trialler who won December’s Northern Championships at Exeter is honing his skills with dogs Quinn and Leesa to compete against Australia’s best in The Supreme, in Campbell Town in October.

And at the same time and location, Australia’s international competition, The Test, will be held against New Zealand.

For Australia there’s ground to be made up in The Test, where four triallers from each country pit their expertise against each other.

‘New Zealand has been kicking Australia’s arse for several years now’, said Justin ruefully.

‘But they’re great events. People come from all over Australia with their caravans. There’ll be people driving from WA for it. It’s a great venue at the Campbell Town football ground; they’ve spent millions on those clubrooms.’

Justin Pinner’s ‘Chickenfeed’ aorta got him into sheepdog trialling.

The self employed farrier’s career came to a halt when he was aged 30. His aorta exploded and life changed forever.

‘I told the surgeon to give it to me in simple terms. He said, ‘You were born with a Chickenfeed aorta instead of a Harvey Norman one.’ I needed an aortic dissection’, he said.

According to Justin, the aorta, the largest artery in the human body, has three layers – and two of his are now sleeved with spacesuit material.

He was flown from the Launceston to Hobart for the operation, arriving with 14 minutes to spare before he would have died. Melbourne was out of the question.

Justin became a retired fa rier. The counterweighting required to take the balance of a horse to shoe it could rupture his aorta. No doubt it was a disappointment for a young man descended from generations of horse people.

He’d ridden trackwork in Devonport for his horse trainer grandfather when he was in year eight at Reece High.

Then his work for Spreyton trainer Michael Trinder earned him an apprenticeship as a farrier, leading to hugely successful international competition shoeing in the US and other countries with fellow students from the North Melbourne Institute of TAFE. They had 28 wins in 28 competitions.

Searching for an interest, Justin looked to his past for a new direction.

Lee Jamieson and Deloraine’s Malcolm Taylor, who died in 2019, influenced him to do sheep trialling earlier in his life. He won his first event in 2010, at 23, the youngest to win the Tasmanian championship.

‘I couldn’t shoe horses, I couldn’t train horses. I’ve gone, “Bugger it”, and asked Jamieson to get me a dog.’

That dog was Quinn, with whom Justin won at Exeter.

Now there are 11 dogs at the Pinner’s Westbury home – and his partner, newly graduated nurse Cecilia Archer, has taken up sheepdog trialling too.

‘Take it from me, Justin lives and breathes dogs. It’s a hot topic in the house’, she grinned.

For sheepdog trialling you need a good dog.

Sheep, especially the notoriously tough ones at Exeter, can be challenging. According to Justin, they’re likely to eyeball or headbutt the dog, or just run in the opposite direction.

The dog’s job is to bring three sheep in a straight line within nine metre corridors from one end of the ground to his owner at the other end.

There are obstacles – races, bridges, pens – and it must be done within 15 minutes. Points are deducted from 100 if the sheep go off course or around obstacles. Ideally a skilled dog loses no sheep.

‘A good dog can be male or female. You get them at 20 weeks old and train them for 15 or 20 minutes once a week to get the desire to work into them’, Justin said.

‘How do you know whether a dog will be good? That’s the million dollar question.

‘Breeding is a big thing, like a good racehorse. And they’re all border collies, black and white, yellow, tri-colour, chocolate.

‘You work with them and sometimes you see the penny drop. But if they don’t work out we have a list of people who are looking for a border collie as a pet.’

There are common commands. ‘Get over’ tells the dog to go anti-clockwise. ‘Come right’ means move clockwise.

There’s ‘Walk up’ to break a confrontation with a tough sheep and ‘Walk behind’ to keep sheep within the nine metre corridors.

‘Everyone has different commands. One guy constantly whistles. It’s like he’s got a canary in his hands’, Justin said.

Justin uses a whistle at a distance and his voice close-up. ‘You need a low voice. There’s no room to move if you start at a high pitch.’

For Justin, the challenge in sheep dog trials is educating the dog.

‘Every dog is different and every trainer handles dogs a different way. You never stop learning with different dogs because every dog is different. I never stop thinking about it.’

Justin’s goal is to improve his trial every time he steps out

there. And of course, tantalisingly in the distance, is The Supreme.

‘Everyone wants to win The Supreme, to be the Australian champion’, he said.

Sheepdog trials will be held at the Westbury Showground on 27 and 28 March. The Supreme will be at Campbell Town in October.

Justin Pinner and his partner Cecilia Archer may be starting a sheep dog trialler dynasty, with the help of champion dog Quinn.
Photo supplied