KINTBURY TEAM CHALLENGE

Ester Cope, Brody Chequer and myself were given the honour to represent the North Devon Working Gundog Club at the Kintbury team challenge on Sunday 16 April 2023.
7 other teams of 3 handlers where also involved from various areas of England and Wales.

June Bearman had managed to secure the amazing estate of Faccombe near Andover for the venue and the every one involved from estate to the clubs helpers did everything to make sure all ran like clockwork.
The judges for the day were John Cook, Andy Ling, Chris Green and Kit Roberts Clarke.
The weather was kind to us and our dogs by not raining and thankfully not being to hot to make it uncomfortable for the dogs.

Woodland was given by the estate for the dogs to show their hunting and retrieving abilities and a little luck was needed at times with what ground you needed to show your dogs off in. Brody unfortunately ended up with some rather heavy bramble for his little cocker to work in and struggled on the retrieves with her handling as was often out of sight.
Ester and her springer worked well together on both runs to post some great scores for the rest of us to add to. Ester also was one of only 3 handlers to post a double figure score in the third and rather difficult retrieving exercise with a bolting rabbit distraction. Ester and her dog ended up with the third overall highest score for the day.
For myself I was lucky with the ground I had as it gave my dog something to hunt and allowed him to show himself off, he picked his retrieves cleanly and backed up what the other two teammates had set up for us.
The North Devon team had managed to post a score of 473 to take the win by 20 points.

Many thanks to the Kintbury club for setting up this event and enabling many of us to spend time together with friends on a truly magnificent estate

Kevin John

Team Captain

OPEN AV RETRIEVER WORKING TEST – 30^th APRIL 2023

The open Gundog Working Test for Retrievers was held at Deer Park, Filleigh, courtesy of the Castle Hill Estate.  Grateful thanks to Skinners for sponsoring this event.

Well done to the 17 competitors who enjoyed the varied tests at this superb location.  Many thanks to our judges Mr Nick Coates, Zoe Townsend and Clifford Davis.  The results were as follows:

1^st        Binneybottom Bullfrog Blue at Grayspeed  – Mr Robin Gray

2^nd       Ashport Plum of Mowbarton  – Victoria Pitcher

3^rd        Peterspond Wader – Karen Handley

4^th        Haddeo Jameson – Mr A Fisher

One COM was awarded:

Ashport Kendra – Veronica Harris

Congratulations to all winners, competitors – and huge thank you to all helpers!

SHERBORNE RETRIEVER AND SPANIEL TEAM CHALLENGE

Sherborne Retriever and Spaniel Team Challenge

This year’s team challenge was held on Bank Holiday Monday on the Old Park and Deer Park and lake, by kind permission of Mr Edward Wingfield-Digby and the Sherborne Castle Estate.

This yearly event is run for charity and organised by volunteers, who did another splendid job, with the public able to enjoy watching some of the dogs work, especially at the lake, which is the fun part for the spectators, but taken deadly seriously by the competitors, as it is timed and the final scores could all come down to the fastest team on the water.

The judges for the day for the Retrievers were Roger Wade, Ricky Moloney, Bill Gardiner and James Bailey and for the Spaniels, Margaret Cox, Andy Faulkner and Neil Varney.

After the scores were totalled up our Retriever Team scooped up second prize so a huge well done to :

Basil Smith with Bellspaddle Banjo of Highshot  who was our Team Captain

Matt Gould with Mitforton Tout de Suite

Victoria Pitcher with Ashport Plum of Mowbarton and

Adrian Moodie with Bellaroyal Class Act

And also a well done to our Spaniel team who were in the cards again taking third this year,   

Julia Griffiths with Remmington Scout who was our Team Captain

Brody Chequer with Super Frankie Lampard of Chequersmate and

Kevin John with Greenbrush Charley of Boggwater

All in all a big “Thank you” to our seven team members for representing the NDWGC so brilliantly, especially Matt who stood in at the last minute after just coming back off holiday.

Thanks also to our Sponsors, Skinners, Gameskeeper’s Goods and Gerald Hallett Land Rover whose generous support contributes to the running of the Sherborne Castle Country Fair.

NOVICE AV RETRIEVER WORKING TEST – 25 June 2023

The Novice Gundog Working Test (AV) Retrievers was held at Landsmill, Uplowman on 25 June 2023,

by kind invitation of Mr James Bosley.  Grateful thanks to Skinners for sponsoring this event.

Thankfully we were blessed with slightly cooler conditions with plenty of shade at this lovely venue. 

19 competitors enjoyed the varied tests judged by Sally Ashby, Laurie Pittaway and Charlotte Wear.

Congratulations to all winners and everyone who took part.

1^st      Hintonbreeze Cote D’Azur – Lee Burdett

2^nd     Newcombes Bertie – Anne Brightwell

3^rd     Dattelns Edges Oak of Bellesbank – Michelle Cox

4^th     Bellesbank Shooting Star – Emma Champion

One COM was awarded:

Beggarbush Gaelic – Ed Brown

Thank you to everyone who helped the day run very smoothly with happy judges and competitors – great team effort!

Novice and Open Spaniel Working Test – 27th August 2023

On the 27th August we ran our Novice and Open Spaniel working test at Snapper near Barnstaple.

The judges on the day were Graham West, Hazel Crockford and Neil Harris, who put the dogs through a series of challenging tests in woodland and marshes. All the dogs had the opportunity to show there hunting and retrieving ability to the full, with some of the dogs being stretched on some testing retrieve in cover.

The club would like to say a big thank you to Chris and Gillian Jones for allow us to use their excellent ground, without the landowners support we would not be able to run these events.

Also, thanks to Graham, Hazel and Neil for giving up their time to judge the tests and offer advice to some of the members that had entered there first test. We must also say a massive thank you to all our helpers on the day Julie Adams, Julia Birchell-Mann, Rachel Waldron, Sharon Stone, Gillian Jones, Paul Passmore and Chris Jones for stewarding, throwing dummies or firing shot.

Once again, we were generously sponsored by Skinner’s dog food and we thank Skinners and Beth Payne for their continued support of the club events.

Results of the Novice test

1st, Alice Wise with Ferula Selene of Woodabudge (ESS B).

2nd, Brian Smith with Vysjkan Miguel (ESS D).

3rd, Morwenna McNally with Cornermarsh Hero (ESS D).

4th, Chris Roberts with Woodabudge Ruby (ESS B).

CoM, Alice Wise with Middletor Harmony (ESS B).

Novice Handler was awarded to Sue Turner with Moel Arthur Popstar (CS B).

Results of the Open Test

1st, Alice Wise with Draigcoch Ella (ESS B).

2nd, Morwenna McNally with Wiscombe Muscat (ESS B).

Well done to everyone in the awards and everyone that took part in the test. We would also like to congratulate Alice Wise on winning both tests.