Two Slate Signs at Livingston Place

The Continental Open All-Age Championship
Livingston Place in 2002
Cindy Crawford Top Qualifier
Barshoe Esquire Champion

Dale Bush and Sherry Ebert judged
Cindy’s qualifying race for Jimmy Edmundson
On the day’s last course
Was spectacular

Seven finds
Without a bobble
Each on the limb
And dug up

Cindy’s casts
Were rocket fast
And to the front
Her style on point intense

Tail poker straight
At eleven o’clock
Never a tick
Every time she had ‘em

She finished in the little woods
Beyond morning’s first breakaway
Sherry rode to a knoll there
Stopped her mount ‘twas heaving

First her eyes scanned far ahead
No sign of Cindy there
Then she looked down
And Cindy stood beneath her horse’s shadow

Jimmy came to Sherry’s call of point
And flushed for number seven
Then fired and Cindy held
Time had expired and without doubt Cindy’d won Top Qualifier

To mark that find
I bought a slate
It hangs there now
Engraved “Cindy’s Oak”

Then in the finals
Esquire drew the course
That ends at the Georgia Line
And used it to the fullest

Two years before
He’d won at Chinquapin
For West and Faller
Under Andy Daugherty’s handle

Andy is a man
With a ready smile
And he often pleases judges
For he picks up quick if his dog’s not earning

Today that was not Esquire’s fate
From “let em go” he went
Went far and always hunting
At the front

With fifteen minutes left
Esquire was gone
Andy riding and calling
Tom Faller riding behind and hoping

Then just as time and
The grace period for Esquire
Were expiring
Came a distant scout’s shout

Andy galloped
Judges cantered
Gallery followed quickly
Esquire stood beneath a pine at the Georgia line

He had a covey
To add to his count
In a far-flung race
That yielded the title Continental Champion of 2002

Under the columns of the Livingston Mansion
Designed by John Russell Pope
Esquire’s photo was shot
With Andy and Sherryl and judges Ebert and Bush

On that tall straight long leaf pine
I hung a slate sign
Engraved “Esquire’s Pine”
So that day would not be forgotten

Excerpts and PDF of Tom’s full report of the 2002 Continental All-Age Championship