He was a genius, no doubt about it. He had the riches to prove it. His genius was not in invention, but in seeing before others how inventions could be applied. Time after time this had led him to buy into successful technology companies before they became publicly owned, either through initial public offerings or recently via the SPAC route.
Then he got bit by the Field Trial Bug. It was the result of a quail shooting invitation, extended by a banker seeking his business. The scene was a quail plantation near Thomasville, Georgia. It had been in the banker’s family on his mother’s side since 1885, assembled by an ancestor from Cleveland who had first come to Thomasville for his health, bought by straw men from turpentiners and cotton-patch farmers for $6 an acre. It still held rare acres of virgin long-leaf pine, groomed by spring-set fires over generations and loved by wild quail.
The bite of the bug had come like this. At the end of a day of hunting from the back of a Tennessee Walker, the hunt guide had put down his best pointer, not a regular member of his wagon string but rather the lead member of his trial string (his employer, the banker, allowed him to keep two trial dogs, one derby, one all-age, to compete in a few trials held on the prairie at the end of the northern training season and in the Deep South piney woods just after the end of the hunting season).
The dog put down for Frank Reed, the genius, was the all-age, Fearsome Fred, which would in a week win the Masters Open Quail Championship, which Frank Reed would witness, his first field trial. There the bug dug into Frank Reed’s psyche like a tick carrying Lyme’s disease. He would never recover, but the bug likely saved his life, for every man so driven in his business life as Frank Reed needs an equally passionate hobby, which field trialing became for Frank Reed.
Frank had in scant time acquired his own quail plantation, field trial string, hunting dog string, retrievers (lab and cocker), guest-horse string, associated equipment, plantation manager-bird dog man, and assorted helpers, some crackers, some African-Americans, and a few smart Gen-Xers of various backgrounds.
After buying his plantation, ten thousand acres lying across the Georgia-Florida line between Thomasville and Tallahassee, Frank Reed sent in the Gen-X technicians from several of his high-tech companies to install all sorts of systems and gadgets designed for security and convenience and for one other purpose he shared with no one. Frank ordered that these be made unobtrusive, indeed invisible. He did not want his employees or guests on the plantation to be aware of some of the systems and gadgets.
Soon Frank Reed was immersed in field trials, not just as sponsor of dogs handled by his plantation dog man and other for-the-public-over-the-road professional handlers, but also by him as the amateur handler of dogs he owned, those in pro strings and strictly amateur dogs kept on his plantation for handling in trials only by him. He studied other handlers’ techniques, and grew in skill (or so he thought) and enthusiasm.
Then Frank Reed came up with an idea that came close to being his undoing. He would get Fearsome Fred qualified to be run in regional and national amateur championships, and he would handle Fred in those championships.
Frank Reed talked to his plantation dog man and Fearsome Fred’s professional handler and developer, Billy Bundley, about the plan.(Frank Reed had hired Billy Bundley away from the banker). Knowing he had perhaps the best job in the Quail Belt, Billy bit his lip and hid his displeasure. He did not want a rank amateur handler messing up his masterpiece, his dog-of-a-lifetime, Fearsome Fred. But he agreed to work to get Fearsome Fred qualified, enlisting the help of a semi-pro handler now qualified as amateur, to put the necessary amateur wins on Fearsome Fred.
The handler he chose was Pete-Bob Dix, the ultimate cracker sport, dog-jockey, show horse pin hooker, live pigeon shooter, high stakes poker player, Lexus salesman, currently plantation land salesman. Pete-Bob had once been classified as a pro handler but had regained amateur status since becoming a real estate salesman.
One of the places Frank Reed had installed hidden high-tech devices was the tack room of his walking horse barn. With those devices he could hear and watch conversations held there, wherever he might be. He was in Silicon Valley when he watched and listened to the conversation about himself and Fearsome Fred held between Billy Bundley and Pete-Bob. At first he was infuriated by what he heard, then humiliated. They were making fun of him, of his ineptitude as a handler of pointing dogs. And Billy Bundley was seriously concerned about his “messing up” Fearsome Fred.
Once Frank Reed calmed down and got over his hurt feelings, he set out to become a good handler. For this he turned to Billy Bundley and Pete-Bob Dix. “Boys, I want you to make me the best amateur handler in the field trial game. I will make it worth your while.”
Frank Reed was by nature direct. And he knew what motivated Billy and Pete-Bob. What they prescribed surprised him. They gave him a list of open field trials, and told him to attend them, accompanied by Booty Blevins, Billy Bundley’s Number One assistant handling quail hunts on Frank Reed’s quail plantation. In his former life Booty Blevins had been a field trial scout for several of the best professional field trial handlers. He also scouted Fearsome Fred for Billy Bundley.
So for a season, starting on the prairies in September and continuing until the conclusion of the Masters Open Quail Championship in March (won for a second time by Fearsome Fred, handled by Billy Bundley and scouted by Booty Blevins), Frank Reed had traveled the continent with Booty to the sites of the trials on the list and ridden beside Booty, who instructed him on what handlers and scouts did right or wrong. In between Frank practiced handling on his plantation, tutored by Booty. The dogs he handled in these sessions were mostly sons or daughters of Fearsome Fred.
All summer Frank Reed looked forward to handling Fearsome Fred in amateur trials in the fall. He decided to spend the last two weeks of August in North Dakota with Billy Bundley and Booty at their training camp. Pete-Bob had Fearsome Fred qualified for all the amateur championships, even the All-Age Amateur Invitational. But Fred would have to win as handler a placement to be eligible to handle Fearsome Fred. He felt sure that with Booty’s help he could accomplish that early this fall. He had lined up Pete-Bob to scout for him.
Soon after arrival at the air strip near camp in his Gulfstream and being picked up by Booty, Frank Reed detected Booty was unhappy. He had become very fond of Booty during their season-long odyssey attending trials. He got Booty alone in a truck on pretense of driving him into Columbus for a haircut. “Booty, what’s got you unhappy?” Frank asked in his always direct way.
“Mr. Frank, I got to tell you something, give you some advice you do not want. You should not try to handle Fred in no trials. That’s not because you ain’t become a good handler. It’s because of Fred’s nature. He’s a one-man dog, and that man is Mr. Billy. If you handle him in a trial no good will come of it. I’ve seen lifetime close friendships between owners and handlers ended by a one-man dog like Fred. I don’t want that to happen between you and Mr. Billy, or to see something happen to Fearsome Fred before he wins the National for you and Mr. Billy.”
Frank was silent for the rest of the drive into Columbus. Booty waited in the truck while Frank had his hair styled in the home-hair salon of the lady who cut the hair of almost all the summer-visiting bird dog people who came to the area in July, August or September. When in forty minutes Frank emerged and rejoined Booty in the truck he said, “All right Booty, I will take your advice.”
Booty was still grinning when a half-hour later they arrived back a camp.