Northwoods Grits places first in derby stake

The only field trial that Jerry competed in this spring was held over the weekend of May 3 at Crow-Hassan Park Reserve outside the Twin Cities. This is a horseback trial hosted by the Northwest Field Trial Association on liberated quail.

The Open Shooting Dog Derby was a big stake with 18 entries including 12 setters and 6 pointers. Our thanks to Frank LaNasa for the use of his horses and to Greg Gress for scouting.

Grits ran in the third brace under overcast and blustery conditions. From the breakaway, Grits had birds on his mind. His race was strong, forward and focused. His first find was forward and 300 yards to the right of the course on a tree line. Jerry flushed a quail and Grits was perfectly steady to wing and shot.

As they caught up to the forward party, his bracemate was on point. Grits backed and stood composed while his bracemate relocated several times. There was no bird.

Grit’s second find was at about 20 minutes, again along a fence row but dead ahead on the course. Again he stood high and tight throughout a lengthy flushing effort by Jerry. A single was seen twittering and running on the ground and eventually disappeared into the dense cover. Jerry shot his gun and took him on.

Grits wasn’t done yet, though. His last eight minutes were forward and reaching and at time he was still hunting far to the front.

Grits is owned by Bob Senkler and is out of our 2011 breeding of Northwoods Blue Ox x Northwoods Chablis.

We handled four other derbies and are proud of their performances:  Trudy (Steve Snyder), Trixie (Greg Gress), Slash (Dan Stadin) and Chet (Nathan Friend).

Snyder’s Liz (Steve Snyder) competed in the Open Shooting Dog stake and did a fine job but had no birds.

This the second son of Ox to place in this derby stake. In 2012, Northwoods Parmigiano (Northwoods Blue Ox x Houston’s Belle’s Choice) won second.