Preacher John Amateur Hour: Part IV-A

William F. Sutton III had sold the family beer distributorship to get away from the day-to-day grind that had contributed to his father’s massive heart attack at his desk before his seventieth birthday.  Although it had been his to sell, his mother, two sisters, his father’s sister, and a few cousins all had a piece of the business and now had a claim on the family trust that had been set up, with “Trey” Sutton as trustee.  Trey had done well on his own before joining the family business, but the others hadn’t, and they were constantly calling him about money.  They wanted to invest in a wide variety of schemes, some of which were extremely dubious while others were possibly viable.  Under the terms of the trust, the proceeds were disbursed in regular payments according to each family member’s share.  There were provisions for access to the capital behind each share but required the approval of the trustee.  Trey received daily calls from his mother, sisters, aunt, and cousins who always needed money for something.

      The only relief was when he either shut off his cellphone or was in a spot where there was no reception which was unlikely to happen as more towers sprouted on the horizons daily.  When he wasn’t on the phone he was on his laptop e-mailing and reading the various prospectuses that he had to consider.  His older sister’s husband who had worked in sales at the beer distributorship had found a plantation that would make a great place to break up as a private retirement community for well heeled snowbirds who dreamed of living some Nash Buckinghamesque Southern sportsman’s life that hadn’t existed for more than half a century.  His other sister wanted to open an art gallery that Trey assumed would feature the artwork of her current boyfriend whose art looked like a revival of 1960s drugged-out-hippie-psychedelic posters — probably with good reason.

      He had come west to visit a few prairie field trials and try to recapture some of the joy he had felt as a boy when his grandfather took him to trials or hunting on the farm in South Carolina.  Now, he felt their hold on him slipping away.  It wasn’t that he was shirking his responsibilities; he was just keeping them in perspective.  Riding hardworking horses following big running dogs on Bobby Phillip’s lease with Bobby, his scout Mack, and especially John was more relaxing than anything he had done in a long time.  There was a rhythm to the days that started before sunrise and ended after dark.  He had come to know the dogs in Bobby’s string – their strengths and their weaknesses.  Although at the level Bobby competed at there wasn’t room for much in the way of weakness in the dogs.  The best of the all age dogs have to search to the far reaches of the country but still show to the front.  They have to be responsive enough to their handlers to fill up the prairies but still handle the tighter grounds in the South.  And they have to be broke.  When a dog disappears on point far to the front it may have to stand for a long, long time.

      Most of all, Trey had come to feel a bond with the two dogs on Bobby’s string that he had bought since coming West.  The all age champion Rebel Yell would give him a chance to do something his grandfather had always dreamed of – win the National Championship at Grand Junction, Tennessee in February.  Jack, as they called him, had already sewed up the prairie award and would have a shot at dog of the year honors if he could make the adjustment to the tighter grounds of the South.  Buster, the derby, slept on his bed each night and had the potential to compete at the upper echelons of the all age world.

      The next trial that Bobby planned to take the dogs to was in Saskatchewan and would be preceded by an amateur championship.  He was encouraging Trey to enter Jack in the amateur as some of his other owners would also be there.  Every other time they put Jack on the ground for a workout, Bobby had Trey work him.  Trey had not worked dogs since his teens when he had still hunted with his grandfather, and, before this trip to the prairies, he had not been to a field trial since he had visited his grandfather’s old trainer in Georgia more than 25 years ago. 

      That same trainer, John Jones, was snoring lightly in the next bed as Trey waited for the day to begin.  He thought about running Jack in the upcoming trial and made his decision.  Bobby had assured him that he could do nothing to hurt the dog’s potential to compete in the open championship.  Just thinking about being in the heat of competition was appealing and the tightness he felt in his stomach when he ran Jack in a workout was lessening each time he did it. 

      John’s snoring had stopped and he was getting up for the day.  John liked to get the coffee started and make breakfast for the four of them.  Trey knew he would have to head home after the amateur trial and would not be able to join them again until they were back in the South in the late fall.

      When he could smell the coffee and sausage in the kitchen, he slipped on his jeans and he and Buster joined John in the kitchen.  He let Buster out into the yard and poured himself a cup of coffee, “John, did my grandfather ever run his dogs in trials?”

      “Before he gave me his dogs, he often ran them himself in local trials.  But I can’t remember him ever running one of the dogs I carried for him.  What are you going to do about Jack?  We’re going to be there with the other dogs anyway.”

      “I think I’ll do it.”

      “Good.” Bobby said as he came into the kitchen at the tail end of the conversation, “You’ll have fun and we can ask one of my other customers to scout for you.”

      So it was decided.  At the end of the week, they loaded the dogs and horses into the two trucks and trailers and headed north across the border.  When they pulled into the headquarters for the trial there were already a number of rigs arrayed in the dooryard of the old farmhouse that served as a clubhouse for the trials that would run over the next 10 days to 2 weeks.  As soon as the dogs were staked out and the horses put in the corrals, Bobby began introducing Trey to his other customers.  They were all older than Trey.  One was a banker from Boston who also owned a place in Georgia.  Another was a developer from Atlanta who was barely holding on in the current recession.  The third was an attorney from Chicago.  All three had flown in and rented a car together.  They would ride Bobby’s horses when they ran their dogs, scouted for each other, and followed along in the gallery.  Other amateurs had hauled their own horses and dogs to Canada.  Some of the more serious amateurs had their own training grounds in the Dakotas.  Others came in from the far West with trailer plates from California, Idaho, and Washington as well as many others from the Midwest and South.

      That evening, the secretary of the Amateur Field Trial Clubs of America (AFTCA) put the names of 40 dogs into the bowl and drew them for the running order.  It would take two and a half days to run the event and then the open championship would begin.  Jack and Trey were drawn in the 17th brace which would put them in the first brace of the third and last day of the trial.  It was a good course, especially in the morning, but as the trials progressed the birds tended to get jumpier.

      The first brace of dogs broke away at 7:00 am on Thursday morning and everyone was wearing a jacket or a fleece which they would be soon shedding as the sun climbed higher into the sky and began baking the harvested grain and hay fields interspersed with grass pastures.  Running early in the day was an advantage as the afternoon temperature would climb to 80 or more, but some of the greatest prairie performances ever had seen dogs overcome the heat as well as the competition to find birds and win.  Trey and Bobby’s other owners rode as a group close up behind the judges as they headed out for the first morning.  Bobby and his scout Mack, along with John, and a few other pros trailed along well behind the main gallery as they were not allowed to assist the dogs or their owners in any way during the running of the trial.  But they were all anxious to see how many birds were on the grounds this year and where they were found during the running on the 20 miles of continuous course that they would travel before they ended up back at camp for lunch. 

      The two dogs in the first brace were both owned by AFTCA trustees who were very serious amateurs who breed their own dogs.  One of them also did most of his own training.  The other had turned the training of the dogs over to his son who had become one of the top pros on the circuit.  There were definitely plenty of birds as one dog had two finds on sharptails and a back while the other had three finds – two on sharptails and one on Huns.  Both dogs put down strong ground efforts and the bar had been set.  The dog with three finds was named Day Dog and most who had seen all the dogs go assumed his bracemate was being carried in the runner-up slot. 

      After lunch Trey swapped horses and rode the afternoon braces.  Some of the older handlers had known his grandfather and a couple claimed to have met Trey when he had traveled to Georgia with his grandfather as a boy.  Everyone was cordial as they talked about the state of trials and the various controversies that plague any sport.  Some were still arguing over the implementation of the DNA testing rules that caused a number of dogs to lose their registration status.  Others worried about the use of GPS tracking devices to recover lost dogs although many still used their telemetry collars and receivers at trials.  It seemed that most had adopted GPS as a training aid and were generally pleased with it.  They also talked about the politics of the sport.  Trey took it all in and kept his opinions to himself.  The politics really didn’t bother him.  He accepted politics as a part of the human condition and realized as soon as three people got together in any venture the politics begin.  One of the three is always trying to sway one or both of the others.  He had experienced it in his investment banking career, in the family business, and now as he managed the family trust.  The only difference with the trust was that there was no democratic process involved.  His aunt had found that out when she had tried to get his mother and sisters to agree to change the trust.  They had formed their majority to no avail; Trey did not give in to the pressure to give everybody their shares of the capital he was overseeing for them.

      After the first day’s running, when all the dogs and horses had been fed, everyone gathered around the Hasty Bake in front of the house where two of the participants from Alabama had been slow cooking a number of pork butts since early in the morning.  In the evening twilight they were pulling the pork as others brought coleslaw and potato salad from the crude kitchen in the back of the house.  Cold Canadian beer was iced down in a couple of coolers and Trey smiled to himself about the ubiquitous nature of this ancient beverage simply made from barley, hops, yeast, and water.  Most likely no one in his family would ever need to work again thanks to people’s unending thirst for beer.  It was late when they rolled into the motel where he and John were sharing a room with Mack and Bobby next door.  A few of the participants seemed determined to stay up and drink a little bourbon but most were soon sleeping – honestly tired from the day in the sun on horseback and around camp.

      The next morning they were up in the dark and back at the camp.  Volunteers had breakfast going when they arrived.  All three of Bobby’s other customers had dogs to run on the second day.  The dogs all had championship placements and two of them had already qualified for the National the previous spring.

      Trey was asked to scout for the banker’s dog, a littermate sister to Jack called Sal in the first brace and he had reluctantly agreed.  Last night and this morning as they rode back and forth from the motel in Bobby’s Dually, Trey quizzed the three veteran handlers about scouting and they mostly told stories of some of the less than savory scouting practices that were in part “urban” legend, in part reality.  The bottom line was to try and stay out on the side the dog goes to and if she doesn’t show to the front to look for her around the bluffs.