314 The Dog Book 



upon very much as the pacer was by those who considered the trotter the 

 only horse a gentleman could possibly use for driving, and plenty of judges 

 seemed smitten with the same idea when it came to deciding field trials, so 

 that to get a favourable decision a pointer had to win "away off" when 

 opposed to a setter, otherwise the latter got the verdict. Many tried to win 

 with them and gave it up, till the late Mr. Dexter took hold of the breed, 

 and with the late Captain McMurdo in charge of the dogs, established the 

 Charlottesville Kennels. This does not mean that no pointers had done 

 any good winning, but that they had not been recognised as in any way 

 entitled to rank with setters. Croxteth had previously sired some winners 

 of good stakes, and as the sire of Trinket's Bang, from whom came Pearl's 

 Dot, "the mother of field trials winners," will never be forgotten by field 

 trials men. Ossian was also a Croxteth, and so was Patti Croxteth which 

 went out to the coast and won two all-ages stakes. There were other minor 

 winners by Croxteth, who may be set down as the one dog of his time that 

 proved himself competent to sire good field dogs; and when it comes to that 

 there is the quite forgotten Drake, by Croxteth. How many are aware 

 that this dog beat the great Mainspring in the pointer stakes at High Point 

 in 1884? 



Then there were the Graphic Kennels dogs that were run during the 

 bad times of prejudice against pointers and their descendants. In Major 

 J. M. Taylor's "Field Trials Records" no less than thirty-five Graphic 

 Kennels pointers and their descendants are named as winners. 



It is generally supposed that Mr. Dexter was the first owner of Main- 

 spring, but such is not the case. This dog was the property of Mr. J. F. 

 Perkins and ran in his name at High Point in 1884 and 1885, the only two 

 trials he took part in. Mr. Dexter was then a setter man, and continued to 

 be so till the American Trials of 1888, in which he ran Count Piedmont into 

 fourth place in the Derby. His first successful appearance with pointers was 

 at the Eastern F. T. Club's meeting of 1889, when he ran second to Rowdy 

 Rod with Rip-Rap. Before this Mr. Dexter had, however, imported some 

 pointers and owned King of Kent, and the kennel in which he had an interest 

 had for some time had the bitch Hops, which became his property later on, 

 and from these two pointers he got Rip-Rap. By this time he had bought 

 Mainspring from Mr. Perkins, and from him came Jingo, bred by Mr. Dex- 

 ter out of his Queen III., who was by his imported Pontiac. The Jingo 

 family is one of the most important in the annals of field trials, and includes 



