On the Ames Plantation

Late winter rains fell coldly on the cotton fields and broomstraw of Tennessee last fortnight, causing three postponements of the 39th running of the national bird dog championship field trials. Twenty-five of the country's top dogs were entered but only 14 finally started, the smallest number ever to compete for the $1,500 stake. Ten dogs were withdrawn at the last moment and one, the famed pointer Schoolfield, only dog ever to win three great stakes on quail, pheasant and prairie chicken, died suddenly of ptomaine poisoning. For a generation the national championships have been run over the broad acres of Col. Hobart Ames's plantation near Grand Junction, Tenn. Tall, old Col. Ames this year had new stories to tell his guests about the curious cherry-red quail on his preserve (TIME, March 13, 1933), now recognized by the Department of Agriculture as a distinct species. Ever since 1909, when Manitoba Rap began the fashion, the national champion ship has been largely an affair for pointers, though a setter, Feagin's Mohawk Pal, won three times (1927, 1928, 1930). This year it looked as if a setter might come through again. Louis M. Bobbitt, a chain drugstore man from Winston-Salem, N. C., one of the first amateur handlers in years to go up against the professionals in this stake, was there with a flashy little setter called Sports Peerless who won the gallery's fancy with his cautious wiggling and creeping when close to birds. He found and handled nine coveys perfectly in his three hours, to four coveys for his pointer bracemate, Shore's Carolina Jack. Another fine race was run by Jacob France's big pointer Kremlin who, under adverse conditions, found eight coveys and several singles and finished fast and fresh. But the best brace of all, and one of the greatest runs in championship history, came on the final day; Oilman Walter C. Teagle's Norias Annie v. Doctor Blue Willing, a lemon-spotted pointer owned by L. D. Johnson of Evansville, Ind. Norias Annie is a black & white relative of famed Mary Blue, who won for Mr. Teagle in 1929 and 1931. She was gun- shy and bird-shy, a "hopeless case," when Handler Chesley Harris began her training. Doctor Blue Willing is a three-year-old whose pace on the big circuits marked him as championship material this year. They started under ideal conditions at 9 a. m.--bright sun, ground drying, little wind--and the dog found a bevy within the first five minutes, then another and another. The bitch warmed steadily to her work and evened this score within the first hour. They found covey for covey during the next hour but in the third, with birds going back to cover, Norias Annie's nose proved best. To her opponent's total of nine she found no less than 13 covies, putting her far ahead of the field and giving her a leg on the title trophy donated in 1931 by the Ambassador to the Court of St. James's, Col. Robert Worth Bingham.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.