Following the very successful meetings of the International Gun Dog
League and the Kennel Club, which were held on the Orwell estate of Mr.
E. G. Pretyman early in April, the spring trials of pointers and setters
were resumed at the end of the month at Aqualate, and finished the first
week in May on the Duke of Sutherland’s fine preserves at Lilleshall, in
the same neighbourhood, near Newport, Salop. Aqualate had been visited
more than once by the English Setter Club. Sir Thomas Boughey (who made
the Albrighton pack of foxhounds what it is) is a staunch supporter of
working trials, and, although he was unable to superintend the beating
arrangements as he had done at the earlier meetings, because of serious
illness, the best of the Aqualate and Forton ground was placed at the
service of the stewards; no trials could have been more thorough. A
drawback, in a certain sense, as regards Sir Thos. Boughey’s ground is
that it swarms with hares; and, although they were not so numerous at
the recent meeting as they had been in 1901, when the Club last visited
the estate, they proved to be troublesome, and one which was caught in
its form by the Derby winner, Colonel Cotes’s Pitchford Carol, was the
downfall of the latter. Although he is a thoroughly broken puppy, he is
self-willed, and it would have been almost unnatural had he not pinched
the hare, although the proceeding meant his dismissal from the stake.
Colonel Cotes, however, had other strings to his bow, for he won the
first and second honours in the Setter Puppy stake with Pitchford Dear
and Dorothy; and later the former beat the winning pointer, Mr. W. L.
Nicholson’s Factor, in a competition for a special prize. This finished
the first day’s work on the Aqualate side of the estate. As the brace
competition and all-aged stake were the only events which were left on
the card, there seemed to be a chance of our getting away early in the
evening of the second day; but a snowstorm put a stop to all work, and
the judges decided to postpone operations until the following morning.
Then the card was quickly run through, although, with the exception of
the performance of Mr. Herbert Mitchell’s Lingfield Beryl in winning the
all-aged stake, the work done was very moderate indeed. Mr. Mitchell’s
Beryl and Linda also won the brace competition; the judges, however,
declared that no single item of brace work had been done, the dogs
having worked independently instead of assisting one another. The
meeting was a great triumph for Mr. Mitchell, but a greater one awaited
him, for the next week his bitch, Lingfield Beryl, won the Champion
Stake on the Lilleshall ground, and then with Linda won another brace
competition, the third they had secured during the campaign. Beryl was,
undoubtedly, a little stale towards the finish, but she won easily
enough, and brought her owner’s winnings to £256 in three weeks. Colonel
Cotes, with a mixed team, won more money, his puppies being a very
choice lot, and a contest between his Derby winner, Pitchford Carol, and
Mr. Abbott’s Bold Alice, the winner at Lilleshall, would have been very
interesting could it have been brought off. The Duke of Sutherland’s
ground was excellent, a lot of the work being done on the old Lizard
racecourse, where Sir Hugo was galloped by Wadlow in his training for
the sensational Derby of 1892, when he won classic honours for Lord
Bradford, with odds of 40 to 1 freely betted against him.