Ben lined up Pete-Bob Dix and Ollie Eans to judge the first Persimmon Place Open All-Age, scheduled to start on the second Monday of January 2026.
Everyone knew Pete-Bob was not to be trusted in any transaction where he stood to profit, but that he would not show favor in judging bird dogs, no matter the owner or handler. Ollie Eans had in his youth been a for-the-public-over-the-road handler for a time, until he was hired by a plumb-rich quail plantation owner to manage his place, which he had done successfully for two decades. He was widely trusted by bird dog people.
The announcement cheered the few dyed-in-the-wool all-age devotee owners still remaining, and Ben called them all to encourage them to enter their dogs. Sam created a twenty minute video of the courses on Persimmon Place to send them on a DVD, featuring wild-bird finds and half-mile casts. The clinchers were a low entry fee, a generous guaranteed purse and the promise of free lunches and a handlers-owners-gallery-steak dinner free to all, with steaks grilled by Pete-Bob and his current girlfriend, subject to sudden change.
At the last minute an amateur derby stake was added to attract owners who liked to handle their own dogs and were looking for ways to qualify dogs usually handled in open stakes by their pros for them to handle in amateur championships and invitationals.
This was Rambling Rusty’s first all-age year and he was suffering the customary first-year doldrums. Al had advised his son Billy to put him on the hunt wagon on Persimmon Place to see some birds fall and renew his hunt instinct and subdue his run urge, but it had worked too well and now Rusty was all hunt, no run.
“Put him in the kennel a week. Road him an hour the day before he goes in the Persimmon Place All-Age,” Al told Billy. Billy was frustrated and confused.
The first Persimmon Place Open All-Age drew forty entries, pleasing all. The weather opening morning was clear and 20 F! Cold! Unfortunately, the plentiful wild birds chose not to move early, not unusual in the territory. Only three finds had been scored by the lunch break. But after lunch they moved and nine finds were scored in the afternoon braces.
Rambling Rusty had drawn the first afternoon brace, second day. Billy was nervous as a cat in a room full of rocking chairs. Rusty scored three finds, steady on all with good style and a good if not extraordinary race. Would it be enough for first place and with the Continental Derby win under Al get him eligible for the 2026 National? Unknown for now.
The trial progressed with some good, some poor performances. When all had run the judges called back Rambling Rusty and a setter from Alabama, Whistling Willy, for a runoff for first place. Willy was handled by a Union Springs-based pro named Buddy Earp.
Willy smoked Rusty in the call back, with a blazing race and two finds in the forty minutes the judges kept them down. So Rusty got second place, and was still just half-qualified for the National. Billy was looking for qualifiers remaining to enter Rambling Rusty in.
He entered Rusty in the Alabama Championship, run at the Cattle Ranch, but he ran birdless there and did not qualify for the 2026 National Championship. Billy feared Carson Grimes would give up on him and Rambling Rusty, but no, Carson was enough in love with his Continental Derby Champion (having shot over him the month he was on the hunt wagon at Persimmon Place) that he could wait for next season.
Carson sent Billy, Rusty and a dozen coming derbies to North Dakota the first of July to train. With them went Carson’s seventeen-year-old grandson, Johnny Grimes, full of mischief and in need of a job. Johnny loved the experience, fell in love with the dogs, and in the process gave Carson and his son Randall, Johnny’s father, much needed relief from the anxiety Johnny had been causing them with adolescent misbehavior.
Johnny went off to college at Davidson on his return from North Dakota. But during trial season he regularly snuck off to join Billy at trials on the circuit and scouted Rusty.
Billy won a first with Rambling Rusty in a qualifier in Missouri in October, Johnny scouting (surreptitiously), having snuck off to do it. Now Rambling Rusty was qualified to run in the 2027 National Championship.
When Rambling Rusty was released to run in the 2027 National Championship, Johnny Grimes released him.
He was picked up by Billy at 1:40 with two finds and a good ground race. Billy knew based on earlier races it would not be enough. “Wait till next year,” Johnny told his grandfather, and hustled to his rental car for the drive to the Memphis Airport for his flight back to Charlotte and tomorrow’s classes at Davidson.
As Billy drove home to Persimmon Place from Grand Junction, Rambling Rusty on the front seat beside him, he knew Rusty’s days as a trial dog were over. Carson Grimes enjoyed shooting over him too much. And Billy figured his own future likely lay in the job of resident dog trainer and hunt manager at Persimmon Place, rather than as an over-the-road-for-the-public handler as his father Al had been.