Cill Dara Gundog Club – Open – Pointer & Setter – Tuesday 17th March 2009

The Hon. Secretary, Anthony Mulhall, was able to secure St Patrick’s Day to run his Open Stake which had been postponed from February when there was four feet of snow on the ground. The original judges were able to oblige and Christy Davitt and Pat Rohan carried the books, and the gun.
The first aspect of this day that was a success was the weather. The breeze blew constantly at somewhere between 1 & 2 all day from more or less the south. It was a beautiful clear spring day with  constant sunshine and high cloud cover. The highest I saw on the thermometer was 11.5 c but it was very pleasant notwithstanding the breeze. This weather had prevailed for a few days previous to the event so the ground was relatively dry. Grouse were found mainly in pairs and it  was heartening to see plenty of sign of grouse on the ground.
1st Gortinreagh Aztec of Glynlark Carol Calvert’s English Setter dog.
2nd F.T.Ch. Silent Seeker of Shannon Bally. Ned Flannelley’s Irish Red & White Setter dog.
3rd.Ballydavid Aoda Capt. C Brady’s Red Setter dog.
This was a very successful event in that taking full advantage of the weather conditions dogs ran well. If you take the running as a single entity then this was just about the best stake I have witnessed, any time, any where. That isn’t to say that all dogs ran to this high level but the vast majority did. This is what spring trials are all about.
It is a long time since I have seen a trial won in such fine style. Carol’s dog covered a heap of ground in the first round at pace. Some, including the handler, thought the dog slightly one sided but I thought it was all due to the lie of the land. The dog was away out on the right when he pointed down wind of one of the birdiest looking pieces of higher heather on the beat. The dog was as steady as a rock for the seemingly long time it took Carol to walk to him and roaded in smoothly to produce the pair.
In the second round this dog, after a false point point, probably on deer scent, really took the bull by the horns and after a good few casts had another find on a pair of grouse. Manners were impeccable on the flush.
Judy.
I only got the Auld Woman in and she didn’t let me down. We were very lucky in the dogs we were drawn to run against as good bracemates create good runs but she still did very well.
First round we were drawn against Gerald Devine’s English Setter bitch Lefanta Tinka. Gerald’s dogs are so well schooled that he never does you any harm and they run so hard and flat that they give you ample opportunity to do the same. The setter might just have had the edge on pace but both dogs covered the same beat, maybe 400 yards either side.
In the second round we were drawn against Calol Calvert’s Irish Setter bitch Rushfield Shelin. I could only hope that this setter would run as well in the second round as she did in the first and she didn’t disappoint. Again this younger dog probably just had the edge on pace, but only just. We had a nice hard, fast, flat run, covering a beat of maybe six hundred yards.
Even on a day as high class there is always something to talk/think about and this day was no exception. It was one of those things that make you wonder just exactly what some people think should happen in a competition. One dog was on point. The brace mate closed to about fifty yards and backed. As the handler was walking to the pointing dog the backing dog broke, ran on past the line of the pointing dog and whipped round to back again. Failure to back is an eliminating fault under IKC rules. The dog which backed originally had eliminated itself when it moved. Now in fairness to the handler of this dog he may or may not have intended to put his dog on the lead but I believe I heard one of the judges telling him not to. Why? What credit can you accumulate after you have been eliminated.
A great day out, great running, yes great is the right word.