The Sooner Pointing Dog Club held its annual spring trial at Trail’s End Ranch, a beautiful venue 60 miles northeast of Tulsa, Oklahoma, over the cool, soggy weekend of February 20 and 21. The ranch is owned by Jerry Myers who also works very hard to put on the trial. Attendance was excellent and handlers came from Oklahoma, Missouri, Kansas and Michigan.
It was an extremely gratifying trial for us as we entered four dogs and came away with three placements.
The Open Derby had 12 entries. I was thrilled with the strong, mature work of Wirthall Dali, setter female owned by Justin Hall. She won the stake, burying all contenders with 5 steady to wing and shot finds, a back and a big race. Dali accomplished all that despite the misbehavior of her bracemate who chased one of Dali’s birds as I flushed and then chased its own quail right past Dali when Dali was backing. Dali, bred by Mary Beth Esser, is a granddaughter of Houston.
We are now 3-for-3 in this stake. We’ve won three years in a row with dogs that had steady to wing and shot bird work—Blue Spirit in 2008 and Northwoods Blue Ox in 2009.
The highlight of the trial and the most competitive stake of the weekend was the Open Puppy. Unusual for a puppy stake, quail were planted. Sixteen dogs were entered and many prominent sires were represented: Hytest Skyhawk, Terhaar’s Rocko, Long Gone Nixon, The Valedictorian and Trail’s End Badboy. The caliber and number of entries in the stake rivaled some major puppy classics.
We are extremely proud to report that we won first and second place with English setter littermates, Northwoods Lager and Northwoods Chardonnay. Lager, owned by Jim and Nina Bires of Minnesota, ran with drive and desire, his big stride taking in lots of country. He found quail three times and pointed them long enough to demonstrate his lofty style and composure.
We own the female, Chardonnay. Her drive and eye-catching style, along with two well-pointed quail earned her placement.
We developed, trained and handled these two exceptional puppies. They are sired by Blue Shaquille, out of Houston’s Belle’s Choice. Paul Hauge bred the litter which is line-bred to his dog Houston.
We were also happy with the performance of Lizzie, a setter female owned by Steve Snyder. Lizzie is sired by CH Magic’s Rocky Belleboa and out of CH Houston’s Belle.
Winning third was Jill, setter female, owned and handled by Dick Fortner of Missouri. She ran well and pointed quail. Dick bred her out of his Hamilton’s Blue Diamond female to Trail’s End Badboy.
As I mentioned in a previous blog entry, we were excited about the caliber of our young dogs this year. “We have some very nice puppies here with us—maybe the best all-around group we’ve ever had.”
