view the grounds

THE GROUNDS

The trial is run on land owned by the Richardson’s and the Walter Ferguson’s in Cheyenne, Wyoming. The terrain at 7000 ft. elevation is varied and challenging. After cast-off the shooting dogs have a 5 to 10 minute run across short grass prairie, gentle swales, and shallow draws. Then they hit a two-mile section of Crow Creek, a mostly dry channel lined with thick scrub willows and undergrowth. There are islands of willows, mown fields, and cover thick enough to hide Huns, but not a dog. Wild Wyoming Huns live in habitat much like this.

 It takes 20 to 30 minutes to cover this ground before turning the dogs across open prairie into some fairly steep rim rock with heavy shrub cover of mountain mahogany, native plum, and sumac. The handlers can choose to run their dogs along the top of this rim with its steep cuts and heavy cover, or to allow their dogs to head across relatively open prairie with some gentle swales and interspersed rock outcroppings which often hold birds.

 Obstacles adding to the challenge of the terrain were numerous antelope, cottontails, and short cactus (requiring boots).

 THE BIRDS

Hungarian partridge are notoriously difficult to raise, but our supplier has discovered how to raise Huns that behave much like wild birds. 240 birds were released before the trial at six sites. Each day about 70 additional birds were released. After release the Huns would begin calling and small coveys soon formed.

 The birds were strong fliers. Singles were rare with flushes varying between 3 and 30 birds. These jumpy Huns often would not flush at once. It was not uncommon for birds to flush after established point, then some more when the handler dismounted, and perhaps a third round when the handler fired. Only the steadiest dogs made it through three or more finds. A derby dog caught not one Hun, even though two inches of rain had fallen on the pre-planted birds.

 This event is wonderful training on the way to the Nationals. It was not unusual to see dogs begin to point the birds from further off. Creeping was instantly punished by an explosive flush. The relatively open terrain allowed most mistakes to be seen by all.