Despite what I thought were his obvious merits Prince of Darkness was only bred three times and effectively only twice. He was used twice on Tony Kieran’s Lagopus Reenagh to produce Luke, and on the second mating Lisenaire Dubh, Zap. Luke did no more than his fair share of bad work but he was one of the most unlucky dogs. This is just one example.I was running Luke and Jump in a trial at Raphoe. Both dogs made the second round. Jump had no bird but Luke had a find on a small covey of red legs. Jump was last full brace, Luke was the bye dog. In Jump’s run our brace-mate put up a hare and Jump coursed it. When I eventually got Jump gathered up I found that the field had repaired to the pub. Luke never got his second run. In fact Luke never won any type of award but I always liked him and kept him to breed from at the right time. His speciality was snipe, boy could he pin them, but you had to be quick ’cause he could eat them too.
The bottom photo is him watching a pheasent away on Place Fell near Patterdale.
Click here for Luke’s pedigree.
