Northants Falcons Flyball Team

Meet Azure, lovingly owned by Sam & Rob. Full of confidence, charm, and undeniably handsome, he turns heads wherever he goes. Welcome to the team Azure 🐾

Happy Retirement, Indi! 🐾

You've been an absolute rock-solid team member and will continue to be a super stooge for the younger dogs. While you've only been a Falcon for just under two years, we couldn't imagine that time without you.

Your lovely temperament and team spirit have made you a pleasure to have around and are a valued member of the Falcons.

Whether at training or competitions, you've always been reliable and a joy to have on the team.

Wishing you a long, happy retirement filled with plenty of treats, naps, and everything you enjoy most. Thank you for everything you've brought to the Falcons, Indi – you'll always be part of the Falcon family.

A fab day at the Southern Striders competition! ☔🐾

Despite the rain all day, it was super busy, great fun, and the dogs and handlers were on top form.

Phoenix – 3rd, 5.96 (Div 3)
Chilli – 1st, 3.7 (Div 1)

Hawks – 1st, 17.34 (Div 3)
Kites – 1st, 16.4 (Div 2)
Falcons – 1st, 14.36 (Div 1)

As well as the Falcons setting a new record, we've had a brilliant day of racing and fantastic results.
Thank you Southern Striders Flyball Team for a great day.

🔥🔥🔥🔥NEW CLUB RECORD🔥🔥🔥🔥

The Falcons have only just recovered from Worlds but our dogs are still on fire!

We have come down south to Southern Striders’ competition; it may be really wet but the Falcons have broken their club record three times: 14.41, 14.39 and then

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️14.36⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Lynx, Pace, Drift, Thor

And there was still room on the start and in the changes 😬😬

A huge thank you to our sponsors AniForte UK , Opal Veterinary Physiotherapy & The Canine Rehab Centre and to our fabulous triggers Mach One Triggers.

New PB for Chilli today!
✨3.64✨
More to come from this crazy girl!

20 years ago, in 2006, Northants Falcons was born. 🦅

Back then, we didn’t even have a flyball box of our own — it was still being built. All we had was the old-style Crufts box, and we trained on it week after week until ours was ready.

We travelled to competitions we’d never been to before and had an absolute blast along the way.

Over the years, we’ve qualified for Crufts numerous times, reaching the semi-finals on many occasions. In 2021, we proudly watched our kids’ team hit the green carpet at Crufts for the very first time. They have qualified most years since. Then this year, for the first time ever, we had both an adults’ and kids’ team competing at Crufts together — and our kids finished an incredible 3rd place, showing the adults how it’s done! We couldn’t be prouder. 💚

We show our fabulous sport at the Birmingham International Tattoo each year.

We’ve gone from competing solely at outdoor competitions to now competing fully indoors (well maybe an odd one or two). Along the way, our club record has been broken multiple times and, for our 20th birthday year, we’ve smashed into the 14s! 🔥

And if that wasn’t enough, our 20th year also saw us take not one, but TWO teams to the Flyball Open World Cup. 🌍 Placing 20th and 51st. What an incredible experience this has been.

What an incredible birthday year we are having.
Now our adult and kids team have both qualified for Crufts 2027.

Over the years we’ve seen different team shirts, members leave, new members join, change of captain from Claire to Katie who we saw get married in 2025, and we’ve been lucky enough to have some fabulous sponsors supporting us throughout it all.

Every step of the journey has made us stronger — and what a team we are. ❤️

What a weekend! The Falcons have just returned from the Royal Norfolk Showground where they were invited to represent Team GB at the Flyball Open World Cup and what an amazing weekend it has been. Grab a cup of tea: it’s a long one!

The team arrived on Thursday to set up one of the three rings and then we had to present our dogs for measuring. Due to a different system in use, some of our dogs measured slightly higher than they do for UKFL. Luckily, Sapphire measured the same (10) but Envy (10), Drift (12) and Lola (12) all measured an inch higher. We had expected this; our Falcons normally run over 11 and we were reluctant to go over 12 so the team had already decided to put Envy in as the height dog for the Falcons on the premise that if she ran 4/4.1 secs, the other dogs could cover her (as it turned out, she didn’t drop her times at all). Therefore our teams were:
Falcons: Envy, Kiki, Lynx, Pace, Drift, Thor
Kestrels: Jarvis, Java, Sapphire, Tarran, Jake, Lola

Friday was vet check and ring time. The vet team were superb particularly with some our more anxious and suspicious characters and all dogs passed with flying colours. We then went on to the Falcons’ ring time where despite a successful training, disaster struck; Pace tore both front pads, ruling her out of the weekend. The team were gutted but we went on to complete the Kestrels’ ring time where all the dogs did well.

Friday evening was the welcome evening including a parade of all the teams and welcome speeches. It was so friendly and amazing to see representatives from the different countries.

Saturday saw both teams running in heat trials where the teams raced to win and earn points and set as fast a time as possible. The Falcons won group O but their time wasn’t quite fast enough to make the championship division and they were placed in division 2. The Kestrels were in a tough group but fought their way to division 6. We celebrated in the evening with a roast made by Angie and Elaine!

Sunday was double elimination and both teams won their first races but lost their second, putting them into the loser’s bracket. The Kestrels were knocked out by one of the Czech teams, placing them 51st overall. The Falcons won one more race but were eventually knocked out by a Canadian team, finishing 20th.

Our dogs have been phenomenal. Envy ran nearly every leg under 4 seconds despite the height increase. Kiki was absolutely solid bringing all her balls back. Lynx raced hard for both Izzy and Abbie due to Izzy revising for her GCSEs. Drift was on fire sitting low 3.5s for both days and Thor carried nearly all his balls, giving us consistent 3.4s on anchor. Despite never having run any of the lineups with Envy, the dogs adapted and gave us their best.

In the Kestrels, Jarvis smashed out a new PB on starts with Java coming in hot behind him to give them a speedy start. Sapphire was consistent and reliable over both days and only faulted once due to the ball falling out of the box. Tarran threw off his bad boy reputation and ran beautifully for Sienna. Jake and Lola were our superb subs who came in and raced flawlessly when needed. We couldn’t be prouder of all our dogs - they were all fantastic.

We should also shout out to our two fabulous box loaders, Aaran and Chris, for being amazing and ready for any re-runs without issue. The whole team has worked seamlessly, adapting to the rule of only 10 in the ring and making sure all the jobs were done efficiently and quickly. Those not in the ring also were a fabulous cheer squad - we knew the whole team were behind us!

A massive thank you to our sponsor physio from Opal Veterinary Physiotherapy, Gemma, who came over the weekend to ensure our dogs were in perfect condition. Our hydro team, Nic and Kate from The Canine Rehab Centre, were also there to cheer us on and our dogs’ were supported by the fabulous supplements of AniForte UK We are also grateful to Swanspool Veterinary Clinic Small Animal for providing us with a fantastic first aid kit.

We had an amazing time and would like to say a huge thank you and well done to Cambridgeshire Flyball for a fantastic event. We raced, we shopped, we met up with friends, we had the best time! Now to recover before we head south this weekend for a competition hosted by our friends, Southern Striders Flyball Team.

Mach One Triggers
Tony Pay Photography