Blog

A Conspiracy With a Happy Ending

March 4, 2021 | Ben Reach, Short Stories | Comments
They had been rivals since 1916, the year of the first Yankee Field Trial, that trial held every Presidents Day by the Georgia-Florida Field Trial Club and called by its members (all quail plantation owners) the Owner’s Trial. They were three adjoining quail plantations, owned by cousins now, once by siblings, children of the same Cleveland Robber Baron, a coal and iron ore man, fabulously wealthy, who owned them all and called it Heavenfield. Read more

The Problem

March 1, 2021 | Ben Reach | Comments
Ben got the call out of the blue. He had never heard of Ronnie Bowles. The young man introduced himself as an aspiring amateur horseback field trailer from Maryland (Maryland, where in Hell can you run a bird dog in Maryland? Ben thought. Read more

One Find Champions

February 20, 2021 | Field Trials, Florida Open All-Age Championship | Comments
“It’s bird dog, not birds dog,” judge Andy Crowell said when I asked him how he and fellow judge Rich Robertson had chosen Lester’s Georgia Time as 2018 Florida Champion, handled by Robin Gates for Jim Clark and Baker Hubbard of Columbus, Georgia, with only one find, and that of a single hiding in a hedge row and found by the dog while it was regaining the front after a change in direction of its course. Andy explained that in an all-age stake it was race, not bird finding, that counted most. And Time’s race had been outstanding, all at the front and searching. Read more

An Open Letter to the American Field

February 12, 2021 | Other Things | Comments
As a long time lover of bird dogs and the field trial sport, I wish the American Field Publishing Company only success. And with that success in mind, I urge it to make available to subscribers (perhaps as a premium subscription to give it additional revenue) online access to one of its treasures: the annual records of all field trial results sanctioned by it printed in the back of Field Trial Stud Books from 1901 through 1948. Read more

1961 to 2021: Reflections on Sixty Years as a T & E Lawyer

February 9, 2021 | Other Things | Comments
On May 1, 2021, I will celebrate sixty years as a practicing T & E (Trusts & Estates) lawyer. Here are some thoughts at this milestone. First: my good luck, so much of it. I grew up on a small sheep and beef farm in Virginia’s mountains. My father died when I was fifteen, leaving my mother and me to carry on with the farm. (His federal estate tax return revealed an adjusted gross estate (net worth) of $29, 946.28). Read more

Reflections on the Second Course at Chinquapin and “27”

February 6, 2021 | Florida Open All-Age Championship | Comments
It has been my privilege to report the Florida Open All-Age Championship at Chinquapin Farm each year since 1995. In those years I have watched many great performances by the best all-age dogs competing in four decades. The memories of those races are indelible, subject to recall when least expected, sometimes on waking in the night, sometimes when driving to an appointment, sometimes on seeing a dog’s or handler’s name Read more

Too Honest

February 2, 2021 | A Little Competition, Fiction | Comments
With headlights out, the small black car rolled slowly up the live-oak-lined sand road toward the kennels and stables of Mossy Swamp Plantation. At 3 A.M. the only light came from a third quarter moon and a dusk-to-dawn pole light in the graveled parking lot where a dozen long horse trailers and a single dually pickup were parked. The car stopped fifty yards from the pickup, and two men in dark clothing emerged and walked to the dually. Read more