Buddy Cain had achieved a long-held ambition, to his utter surprise. He had qualified Maryland Molly for the National Bird Dog Championship, to be held on the Ames Plantation beginning the second Monday in February, two months away. Molly was a four-year-old pointer female owned by Stan Shelton, a home builder from Baltimore. Like most in his line of business, Stan’s fortunes were boom and bust, dependent largely on interest rates and construction loan availability, over which he had no control.
Molly had qualified by winning a second first place in a qualifying trial, a recently moved one-hour open all-age stake run in Nebraska in October and sponsored by a new field trial enthusiast, Fred Carnes. Fred was an unlikely trialer, drawn to the sport by a Georgia quail plantation dog man who, at the behest of Sam Nixon MD, a college mate of Fred Carnes, had taken Fred’s grandson, a college student hooked on cocaine, to North Dakota for a summer’s work with bird dogs and horses following three months of resident rehab addiction treatment.
Fred had visited his grandson at the old man’s dog camp at the end of August and stayed over to ride at the North Dakota Classic trials at Columbus. At the end of those trials Fred was hooked on trialing, and his son back in college. The Nebraska ranch he had grown up on and still owned was a near perfect three-hour trial ground with gates in good places and enough, if not plentiful, wild game birds—and not overgrazed. A long-standing club with a mid-October date lost its grounds and by serendipity Fred had stepped in and offered his ranch as its grounds.
Buddy had been introduced to Fred at Columbus by the old Georgia dog man. Buddy’s father had been a contemporary and friend of the old dog man in that South Georgia world in which everyone knew everyone else, and father-son apprenticeships were traditional.
Now Buddy concentrated on preparing Molly for the National. He talked to a half-dozen handlers who had done it successfully more than once. He decided to take her to north Mississippi where scenting conditions and ground cover would be like those on the Ames Plantation. He would hire out his field trial string to a shooting preserve operator there to make a few bucks while he worked Molly on the preserve to prepare her for the big show on the Ames Plantation.
Preparing a bird dog for the three hours of National competition was an art, and a hard one to master. Three hours was an eternity for a bird dog to hunt before a horse, especially if weather conditions were difficult—too hot or too cold—as they often were at Ames. Just how long to work Molly, and how often, and what times of day, obsessed Buddy. He had been warned by all the veterans against over-working her. But how much was enough? Too much?
Just as he felt Molly was rounding into top condition for the marathon, Buddy received a devastating call. It was from Stan Shelton. He would declare bankruptcy next week. But first he would give Buddy the opportunity to place Molly with a new owner. After Molly’s win of the Nebraska trial Fred Carnes had asked for that opportunity should it arise. Now it did, and the three-way deal was made on one cell phone conference call. Molly’s price would sadly pay Stan’s bankruptcy lawyer’s retainer.
Fred was semi-retired after selling his John Deere dealership. He next day flew from Nebraska to Memphis to join Buddy. He would stay at the shooting preserve where Buddy was working Molly and supplying his trial string for patrons to shoot over. Buddy also had a small room there, next to the kitchen.
Like Stan Shelton, Buddy was near broke, or by a skeptic’s analysis, plum broke. His diesel dually was five years old with near four hundred thousand miles on its odometer. He had three dog horses, the minimum a handler could stay viable on the circuit with. Preferably he would have four or five. But on the plus side of his ledger, he was young, fit, and sober, with a strong work ethic. And he could break a dog without taking anything from it, a rare talent.
His three horses had been acquired the usual way for a handler. As two-year-olds and green, one from its breeder, two at sale barns. They were picked for their conformation and eye, in the hope they would develop to be strong and athletic and not scatterbrained. They had. But one, the best, would soon break down. Dog horses ridden by professional handlers lived hard lives.
Finally drawing Saturday arrived and Buddy and Fred attended together. Molly drew the next to last brace. Unfortunately, her bracemate would be a dog in the string of the handler he traded scouting with, so he would have to recruit a scout.
Monday dawned ideal, overcast and 50 degrees F. Buddy and Fred would ride in the gallery, Fred on a rented horse Buddy had arranged. The morning dogs were picked up mid-heat with two finds and an unproductive each. Fred and Buddy would not ride the afternoon heat, having decided a half-day horseback would be enough for Fred, and Buddy wanting to conserve horseflesh. In the afternoon Buddy worked two dogs from his string for shooting customers at the preserve.
Besides being a shrewd businessman, Fred Carnes was an outstanding horseman, a skill learned in his youth in Nebraska when he competed in high school rodeo and from childhood rode with his father working cattle on the ranch where he sponsored the trial where Maryland Molly qualified for this trial. Fred had been watching Buddy’s stock since the two trials at Columbus where he had caught the field trial bug. He observed them too at the trial on his ranch where Molly qualified. What he saw was they needed pasture rest.
When on opening Monday afternoon Buddy returned to the Mississippi preserve to manage a hunt, Fred made a call to the old dog man in Georgia who gave his grandson a summer job working bird dogs. He made an offer to, and a request of, the Georgian.
For the rest of the first week of the National, Buddy and Fred rode a brace a day of the trial, alternating between morning and afternoon. They watched some solid performances, but none Buddy thought Molly couldn’t beat with luck and a day when birds moved. Buddy roaded Molly for the last time on Thursday.
Then on Sunday, when the running of the National Championship was suspended, the Georgia dog man arrived in his dually, an in its trailer rode two dog horses, one his own best which Fred had bought, one Fred had commissioned him to buy. The price of finished dog horses was currently high. Fred had been glad to pay it. The horses were a gift from Fred to Buddy.
When Fred told Buddy and showed him the horses, Buddy cried. And remembered what his own now-dead father, also a field trial trainer-handler, had told him when he told his father on his death bed that he intended to turn pro handler, “Remember, son, the most important thing for your career will be getting and keeping loyal owners.”