ENGLISH SETTERS 147 



Elias Bishop, who ran a better sort in the Puppy Stakes in the 

 spring of 1906, Ightfield Mac, more fitted, in his then form, 

 for American than for English field trials. The demand there 

 is for a dog ; here it is a little too much for a breaker. It is 

 a question whether allowance enough is made at field trials for 

 the indiscretions of youth. The consequence of judging puppies 

 as if they were old dogs is that, when they become so, they are 

 not a very high-couraged lot, and the winning puppies seldom 

 become mature cracks. 



There is plenty of evidence that the encouragement of 

 docility instead of determination in puppies has done more to 

 run down English setters than even in-breeding itself. The 

 doer of the most brilliant work will go out if he makes one 

 mistake. In practice there is always a duffer that does not 

 make one. 



That is the worst thing that can be said against field 

 trials, and it has only been true of late years. The old style 

 of judging was to select the most brilliant worker for highest 

 honours, and under it English setters made rapid strides. 



This handicapping of great capacity goes farther than 

 merely turning a dog out for a trivial fault. The judges often 

 seem to demand a dog with small capacity that is, compared 

 with the old demand. Here is a comparative instance. In 1870, 

 when Drake the pointer won the Champion Stake, he arid a 

 competitor were turned off in a field through which there ran a 

 line of hurdles cutting the field in two. Drake disregarded the 

 hurdles and beat the field as if there had been none, and did the 

 whole field in the same time that his competitor took to do 

 the half that is, only one side the hurdles. He did not scramble 

 it, but methodically quartered every inch. Precisely the same 

 kind of field occurred at the National Trials in 1906; but when 

 Pitchford Duke got through the hurdles, his handler, knowing the 

 feeling of judges generally, ran after him, whistling and shouting, 

 to get him back to do the 150 yards wide strip that the hurdles 

 divided from the bulk of the field. It is true that Pitchford 

 Duke did not make as if he was going to quarter the whole 

 field in Drake's style, but had it been Drake himself the breaker 



