It was nearing the end of this period that field trials began to
occupy the attention of breeders and sportsmen, and although Setters
had been getting into equal repute for the beauty of their work, there
was something more brilliant about the Pointers at first. Brockton's
Bounce was a magnificent dog, a winner on the show bench, and of the
first Field Trial in England. Newton's Ranger was another of the early
performers, and he was very staunch and brilliant, but it was in the
next five years that the most extraordinary Pointer merit was seen,
as quite incomparable was Sir Richard Garth's Drake, who was just
five generations from the Spanish Pointer. Drake was rather a tall,
gaunt dog, but with immense depth of girth, long shoulders, long
haunches, and a benevolent, quiet countenance. There was nothing very
attractive about him when walking about at Stafford prior to his
trial, but the moment he was down he seemed to paralyse his opponent,
as he went half as fast again. It was calculated that he went fifty
miles an hour, and at this tremendous pace he would stop as if
petrified, and the momentum would cover him with earth and dust. He
did not seem capable of making a mistake, and his birds were always
at about the same distance from him, to show thereby his extraordinary
nose and confidence. Nothing in his day could beat him in a field.
He got some good stock, but they were not generally show form, the
bitches by him being mostly light and small, and his sons a bit high
on the leg. None of them had his pace, but some were capital
performers, such as Sir Thomas Lennard's Mallard, Mr. George
Pilkington's Tory, Mr. Lloyd Price's Luck of Edenhall, winner of the
Field Trial Derby, 1878; Lord Downe's Mars and Bounce, and Mr. Barclay
Field's Riot. When Sir Richard Garth went to India and sold his kennel
of Pointers at Tattersall's, Mr. Lloyd Price gave 150 guineas for
Drake.
The mid-century owners and breeders had probably all the advantages
of what a past generation had done, as there were certainly many
wonderful Pointers in the 'fifties, 'sixties, and 'seventies, as old
men living to-day will freely allow. They were produced very
regularly, too, in a marvellous type of perfection.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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