This all happened over seventeen years ago and it is difficult to remember exactly how I felt when I first saw Ombra. I had pored over her pedigree and papers for hours but nothing quite prepared me for Ombra in the flesh. She was certainly different. She was in excellent condition when I first saw her. She shone like a slug and she certainly was a pointer shape. I don’t remember who it was that told me her tail had been damaged by being closed in a door but that was probably untrue. She had an excellent temperament and rolled about on the grass in Stranaer with my two sons that she had only just met like they were long lost friends, almost as if they were her pups. A beautiful wee bitch notwithstanding her three little piggies tail.
Will Sloan knew I had been trying, unsuccessfully, to start my own line and he had heard of Ombra for sale in Scotland, with strings attached. I blame Will, for it was he who woke me from my reverie to tell me about Ombra and to suggest that we buy her together. I never considered partnerships a success so I decided to buy her myself. The strings attached rider was that the first time she was bred it would be to Marino’s dog, Apulae Roi, that he had brought home with him when he relocated to Europe from Brazil. That didn’t seem to much like a big ask as the breeding on both sides included dogs of the class of Ferreos Tom, Echednei Alex and Zitas Monika, so I closed the deal. I paid £700 for Ombra. ( for heavens sake don’t tell the ball and chain). I suppose that seems a fair bit but the cost of importing and quarantining a dog was in the region of £3,000 so I felt I had done OK.
Marino was stuck for space when he moved into Edinburgh, and as the new boy in town hadn’t much opportunity to have access to the necessary ground to train a dog so Ombra had been to at least two trainers, with limited success. I brought her home to Ireland and she settled in quite well but she was a very unlucky dog in trials. I don’t believe she ever had an opportunity to point in competition and you all know that points, make prizes. People who saw her run were impressed with her performance but less than enthusiastic about her conformation.
There were a few other problems as well. The continental paper work suggested she was two years younger than that which came from Clarges Street. I didn’t dispute this, to my cost, as the regulations about ceasing breeding after the age of eight only came in about two years after I bought Ombra. This on top of the fact that she was ” two years old and never had a full season”. Make that “four years old”.
Enter Gerry Scullion M.R.C.V.S., stage right. What Gerry doesn’t know about dogs would fill a gnat’s ass. By judicious use of a product used to stop bitches coming into season, and then withdrawing it, guess what? Ombra in season.
I nipped over on the boat to Edinburgh for the dog and on the 14th August 1991 Ombra produced a litter of four., two black dogs, a black bitch and a black and white bitch. This litter yielded a Champion dog and an Open Stake Award winning bitch.
Two years later Ombra was mated to Sammy Morrison’s Int.F.T.Ch. Slieveanorra the Shifter.The pup that I kept out of this litter became my dog of a lifetime, F.T.Ch. Bold as Brass. Maybe Ombra was’t such a bad buy at £700.
The orange and white dog is Apulae Roi, imported from Brazil but of Italian lines. He was the sire of Ombra’s first litter. It isn’t obvious from the photo but he made two of Ombra. She was light, fast, blindingly so and quick at everything. The dog was a bit ponderous but had great game sense. I thought he was the strong point of the whole thing at the start but now I reckon that Ombra offered more to her pups than the sire.
