Gregory beskriver sitt Novice i Yorkshire

Pratade med duktiga fransmannen Gregory Hugyens på msn i dag. Så här berättade han:

We just came back from N Yorkshire where my wife and myself both ran in a novice stake
A panel judges: Big Bob Stobbart and Fred Mitchinson, non panel Christine Dickson and G Dob. The trial was held on Spaunton Moor near Hutton le Hole.
The grouse moors are a quite testing landscape but very beautifull. The line was often stretched over more than one hundred metres. We walked trough a gully with each pair of judges one either side of the little stream

When birds were shot in front of the dogs, cross retrieves were offered. Even first round. We had 23 pheasant, 7 woodcock, one snipe and a bunch of rabbits

Véronique had a clean and crisp first retrieve, down the line, with our homebred young golden. Unfortunately she failed on a rabbit because Vaillant lacked confidence to cross the fast flowing water

I myself with the lab you saw at the SEGS trial. First retrieve ok. Second retrieve, cock bird shot, falls down but starts to run even before it touches the ground. And the bird falls on open ground so sets of with great speed. I was asked to send the dog with no delay. Angus got to the fall, hunted the area. At one moment he touched the "line" but came back to the fall... First dog failure

I was unlucky to be presented the only running bird of the day. A shame really because there were some testing "technical" retrieves (open standard!) througout the day which we could have pulled of easely
My dog handles very well, holds his area nicely (which he is trained for) but is unable to take the line of a runner (which means leaving the fall-area). We don't have walked up trials on the continent so
it will be very difficult to reach a reasonable standard in collecting runners. In driven trials strong running birds are gone...
Frustrating. It is the second time we got a first dog failure. The previous one was on the very last retrieve of the day, I was the only dog left in competition!
Gregory var ju med på det ena av de två Novice proven vi var på, och kom tvåa där med sin duktiga Rhypyker Flair ( Aughacasla Sam of Drakeshead-Rhypyker Phantom)

Det är många utlänningar som deltar på engelska prov nu!