The Pointer Club of Scotland held it’s Spring Open Stake at Clune on Monday 26th March 2007 by kind permission of His Grace the Duke of Bedford. David Hall and Lawrence McAllister carried the gun and the Steward of the beat was Richard MacNicol, the keeper Davy Thompson being engaged on burning duties. The Judges were Peter O’Driscoll and Dominic Goutorbe. The day started cold and slightly overcast with little or no wind but as the day went on the breeze got up a bit and the day became sunnier and warmer.
1st F.T.Ch. Wedellsborgs Aja of Ensay (Imp) Mrs Penny Garragh’s Gordon Setter Bitch.
2nd F.T.Ch. Clitters Blackthorn of Ensay Penny Darragh’s Gordon Setter Dog.
3rd Geransary Dancer Richard MacNicol’s Pointer Bitch.
C.O.M. Bonnygate Just a Madam for Deadaway Joanna Blower’s Pointer Bitch.
Jump.
Jump is near his tenth birthday and it showed. In fact I decided after this run to retire him from all competition and he will not run again. He started off OK but his lack of fitness told and he went to look for water. He was involved with hares and a false pointing brace mate and ended up with a back to his credit.
Roxy.
First round started in a still air and when the breeze came we were running down wind. Roxy ran a perfect down wind pattern. i.e. She ran away from me down wind and quartered back towards me. As luck would have it our opponent had a find in the middle of the beat. A very tricky find and the dog did well to produce the bird but it was well beaten for ground coverage and pace.
The second round was against one of Penny’s Gordons. Both dogs did a nice even beat with pace and a flat pattern. I would have said there wasn’t much between the dogs but Roxy got through and Penny’s dog didn’t. Strange!
The third round was against one of Jean Brown’s Irish Setters. I am sure Roxy looked good but she was running on autopilot and wouldn’t handle. When eventually Jean’s dog pointed ( I wasn’t to know that it was a false point ) I though it would be unsporting to spoil the dog’s work out by trying to stop my dog so I let her run over the hill and out on the trial. She did eventually come back nice and flat. This was Roxy’s most complete performance for me and I was well pleased with her.
Obviously this was a great result for Penny Darragh. Some day somebody will use very small words to explain to me why the, so called, Gordon Setter enthusiasts aren’t wearing a path to her door to buy pups. What percentage of the awards won by Gordon’s over the last ten years have been won by Penny’s dog would make an interesting statistic. This was a well organised and run event made possible in no small part by sympathetic judging in the early trying conditions. It was not however a trial full of top class dogs. Maybe I am being harsh as this was only the fourth trial of the year and some dogs may not have been fully in the groove.
