The Derby

Last Hope took the right edge after leaving the breakaway. His bracemate, a pointer named Hollywood Hal, took the left edge. 

Both dogs hunted them forward out of sight. In the second field they were found pointing, Hal in front, Hope backing. Bob and Bill knew Hal had stolen the point, for Hope was the faster dog. All was in order at the flush. Both dogs were watered from their scouts’ detergent bottles and released.

The two pointers traded punches for the rest of their three hours, both surging in huge forward casts, deep but responsive to their handlers’ horses directions and their calls. 

As the three hours wound down, they were tied at seven finds each. Someone besides Bob and Bill suspected Hollywood Hal of larceny: the pro-handler judge, and for the same reason. With ten minutes remaining in the heat, that judge called a marshal to follow him and took a short cut where the course made a partial horseshoe turn. The judge and marshal were waiting when Last Hope and Hollywood Hal reached the large harvested bean field where the heat would end. From their vantage point they could see both dogs enter the field, soon followed by their handlers, the other judges, and finally the gallery. 

When the two dogs reached a pine oasis in the center of the fifty-acre bean field, Hope twenty yards in front, Hal head trailing, Hope pointed. Then Hal saw him, backed him momentarily, and turned his head, looking for his handler. When he observed his handler absent, he eased up and stole Hope’s point. 

Just then, time expired and the handlers and two other judges entered the bean field to see Hal pointing and the derby Hope backing at the edge of the pine oasis. 

The pro-handler judge rode over and told the other judges what he and the marshal had just witnessed. When Hal’s handler dismounted to flush Hal’s birds (rightfully Hope’s) the judges told him no, to his confusion, then consternation. 

With time expired, the judges dismounted and got in a van waiting on the nearby road. The marshals lead their mounts to a waiting horse trailer to be hauled to the big brick barn. An hour and a half later, showered and in coats and ties, the judges stood on the Ames Manor House porch as the new Secretary announced Last Hope the first derby National Champion since 1917. 

Bob died in his sleep the night he got home to Lee County. Bill got Hope by Bob’s will, along with the rest of his meager estate.

Bill was hired as manager and dog trainer by one of the quail plantations where he and Bob had provided their strings for Christmas holiday hunting parties. Bob’s and Bill’s apprentices were hired at the same quail plantation as assistant trainers and grooms. 

Last Hope would join the plantation’s wagon-dog string and enjoy a long happy life pointing quail for the family of the owner and guests in Thomas County. He would be famous as only the second derby to be named National Champion since 1896, the first, marvelous Mary Montrose, in 1917, 108 years before.