168. Scott Stokes

<p>Scott Stokes runs a building company out of Greenbank in south-east Queensland and has only been trialling about five years. In that time he&#39;s won an open at the Queensland Supreme, beaten his mentor to do it, and made the Queensland rep team with Gage, the station bred kelpie he bought off Gumtree at Inverell for $300.</p><p>He grew up on farms in the Waikato in New Zealand until he was thirteen, then moved to the Gold Coast with his family. Dogs weren&#39;t really part of the plan. He bought Gage as a mate to bring to work and only put him on sheep because the dog had too much go in him to sit in the ute.</p><p>We cover a fair bit in this one. Scott talks about training around a business and a young family, including the years when the sheep were 35 minutes away and he&#39;d get home in the dark. He&#39;s honest about whether 3-sheep is a collie game or just a numbers game, and about the pressure that got to him at Stanthorpe when he was chasing a spot in the Australian team. He also makes a good case for new triallers putting their hand up to judge, and passes on the advice Jeff Gibson gave him when Gage started blowing through his stops.</p>