NORTHFIELD, Minn. — It took three days, but the top-seed jinx of the Super Retriever Series finally took its toll.

As a matter of fact, it turned things totally around.

Derek Randle and Stella of Prairie Grove, Ark., won the event after starting the day in last place. And to punctuate it all, Bill Autrey and Cody of Bentley, La., who was seeded number one going into the event, but barely made the 12-dog semi-final cut on Friday, finished second.

As a result, the two retriever/handler teams have qualified for the final two spots in the ESPN Great Outdoor Games.

"Everything has to fall in place," Randle said. "There were so many things that could have, should have gone wrong. And it just worked out."

Randle and Stella posted 27 points in the final round. Autrey and Cody finished with 30 points for second. Mark Suchta and Scout of Zimmerman, Minn, were third with 31 points.

J. Paul Jackson and Achilles of Dyersburg, Tenn., the team that steam-rolled the competition for three days fell to fourth with 60 points. Keith Allison and Abby of Pea Ridge, Ark., was fifth with 88 points and Mark Fritzmeier and Emmy were unable to finish the test.

The top-seed jinx

Jackson and Achilles are the first team to ever lead the Super Retriever Series competition for three days. Historically, the number one seed quickly fell off the pace in this competition. But after three days it looked as if Jackson and Achilles would defy it and stay on top.

Instead, the retriever/handler team didn't fall from the top seed — they crashed.

The crash came on the initial retrieve of the final test that started with a blind retrieve and was followed by three marks. Billed as "the nastiest blind retrieve in SRS history," the first cast lived up to its billing.

"The blind was the meat of the test," said Randle co-owner of War Eagle Retrievers. "It all came down to that one retrieve."

The tests

The test took place on the top of a hillside in the rolling terrain common to southern Minnesota. The blind retrieve, sitting approximately 200 yards away, took the dogs down the hill to a point of shallow water with a lot of cover. From there, the dogs stayed on line and came out atop a levee that separated that lake from another below the hill.

"That was the critical part of the retrieve," Randle said. "You had a very small window that you had to send your dog through. If it were right or left then they would be running the bank instead of hitting the water. And the trick was, once they went over the levee, you couldn't see them."

After the dog left the levee, they still had about 80 yards to go across the second pond. It was filled with about 200 decoys, the biggest portions of which were out of sight of the handlers. And in almost every instance the decoys provided some suction making the dogs want to track that direction.

Those decoys that were left, about two dozen, were placed directly in line with the blind retrieve.

"They were a little tricky because they were constantly throwing your dog off line," Randle said. "And you had to time your whistles perfectly, or you would turn your dog and he would be behind a decoy and couldn't see you."

All the handlers had trouble with the retrieve. It was on that retrieve that Fritzmeier picked up Emmy and did not complete the test. And it was on that retrieve that Jackson and Achilles' three-day run fell apart.

Achilles took the initial line, but once in the shallow water and in the heavy tufts of grass he popped twice. Jackson said the checking up was a result of Achilles hearing the sounds of splashing water from the sound monitors on the course.

"My dog is bigger and heavier than the other dogs," Jackson said. "So he made more noise and he popped. There's no other reason he would have done that."

The early miscues dug a deep enough hole that the team never recovered.

Three marks down

The blind, though, wasn't the only pit fall in the test. From the blind retrieve, there were three marks thrown. The first mark was a short 80-yard swimming/diving duck.

In short, a special Dead Fowl Trainer, a reproduction of a real duck, was produced for the event. Shaped like a teal, the Dead Fowl Trainer had a lip on it like a diving crankbait used by fishermen. The bird was cast from a deep-sea style fishing rod and reel. Attached to the fishing line was a breakaway loop that gave way when the dog actually got the bird in its mouth.

But before it did that the dog has to understand the concept of a wounded bird in the field.

Once the retriever got close, the bird was reeled in for a short piece, diving under the water for a few feet before popping up again. The action was repeated once the retriever regained his bearings and before the dog was allowed to catch the moving target.

The next mark was a 140-yard bird that sailed on the opposite hillside, landing on the backside of a spread of Canada goose decoys. The line on the retrieve forced the dog down a hill, into shallow water, out of water, up the side of a hill in tall grass and through the approximate 100 decoys.

The final mark was a short sailing bird that fell in line with the second fall but just on the other side of the pond.

For the most part, the only mark that caused any problems was the long second mark.