Well, although my first addendum to the recent "Trajectory" post was probably OK insofar as it clarified (I hope) that successful all-age dogs are not allowed to run in Quals, I have since learned of another flaw in my thinking on the trajectory topic.
That flaw is the idea that a dog who is at the level of being able to compete successfully in all-age stakes, but is not yet ineligible to run in Quals, would dominate the less skilled dogs in a Qual, and could reasonably be expected to win.
From what I have since learned, I now think it would be more accurate to say that such a dog would be more likely to win than the less skilled dogs, but that the improved probability falls far short of likelihood, much less assurance. There's even a good chance that that dog would not make it to the last series, for any number of reasons.
I still don't plan on consciously wishing for other dogs to do badly so Laddie can win, and I still think that Laddie is on a generally rising trajectory. But I see that I need to adjust my thinking to understand that whether Laddie places or not in a field trial is only weakly correlated to his general level of competence, and that many other factors will also affect the outcome.
LL&L
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