Wicklow & Wexford Gundog Assoc. – Open – Pointer & Setter – Saturday 1st August 2009.

The Wicklow and Wexford Gundog Association held its summer trial on grouse at The Liffey head in The Wicklow Mountains National Park on Saturday 1st August 2009. Judges for the day were Joe McGill, Pat Dooley and Kieran Walsh. There was a distinctly autumnal feel to the day with it being dull and blustery and we had several showers some of them heavy. With The Minister having decided to curtail our activities until August we were all up for the day but what a disappointing day we had. The weather didn’t help but the real problem was the lack of grouse. Only one bird was produced in the stake, Declan O’Rourke saw a covey of seven while walking back to the cars and I walked up a single hen while walking back as well.
The positives were that for the first event of the year all the dogs, with the exception of a brace of pointers running early on, ran very hard. Some quartered extremely well and some were hunting harder than others but apart from the exceptions thay all ran.
To give you the scale of the event ponder these points. The ground is basically a rectangle and with a road along two sides it was easy to measure it as 1 mile by 1.3 miles. The wind was blowing in a way that each beat was parrallel to the one mile stretch of road. I reckon that by the time the event was over we had done five 1 mile beats so the judges walked roughly ten miles, and I did too as I had three dogs in the event and boy did I know it on Sunday. I had forgotten all about ham strings since I retired from rugby. On the same basis the average beat was 381 yards wide, in other words nearly two hundred yards either side. Three or four brace were run on each beat so a dog would typically cover an area approximately a quarter of a mile square. A dog would threrfore be likely to run about five miles in its first round.
My own dogs were a mixed bag.
Chris only got the one run. The holligan Ross tried to run last year has become a bit gentlemanly, perhaps because of all the shooting he did in the season. His bite was nice and even and his lines were good, but partly because of the topography he was a trifle one sided. The real ctisisism was that he seemed to lack a little in drive. I think he is in love with Roxy again so perhaps he was distracted.
Jalad pleased me and must have pleased the judges as well cause he got several runs. We were working on a cheek wind and Jalad doesn’t do cheek winds terribly well. He tends to turn back on the up wind side, on this day the left. If I let him turn himself he will turn forward but if I blow him he will turn back. Just have to hope we get a head wind or that he is in a mood ot turn himself.
Roxy was on fire. She had several runs and whereas she was disinclined to turn she was flat out, doing a nice lines, but side to side could have been eight hundred yards. As I said milk would turn quicker but the judges must have seem something they liked or they wouldn’ t have brought her back in the last four. The last time I cast her off she got on a line, wouldn’t handle, wouldn’t even drop and was quite rightly eliminated. Which would you rather do, ride a Honda 50cc in the dry or a 750cc on ice. It was fun while it lasted. She was looking a bit loose round the back end and I fully expected her to be in season today, not with standing the Duratestrone I gave her last night but it looks like I got her in time.
Us triallers are easy pleased. The awful weather, the hard slog, it would have all been cheerfully put up with had there been the odd bird. Once again I will thank the secretary, Michael Murphy, for his tireles work in organising the club’s trials. The judges are to be commended for their efforts and the competitors for putting up with all that was thrown at them cheerfully. A potentially good day spoiled by the failure of the grouse to show up.