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 
