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The Qualification of Reb

March 29, 2021 | Ben Reach, Short Stories | Comments
For Billy Kell, it seemed the worst possible day of his life. It did not turn out that way. This is the story. It was 2004. Billy was an up-and-coming bird dog pro, age twenty-eight, a trainer-handler of pointing dogs for field trial competition. He’d grown up the son of a quail plantation manager near Thomasville, Georgia, who earlier had been the plantation’s dog trainer and hunt manager. Read more

1937

March 19, 2021 | Fiction | Comments
A desperate time. The Great Depression was in its eighth year. No sign of a lift out of it. Yet for a few, times were fine. Prices were low, very low, so for anyone with cash, things, all things, were cheap. Purchasing power, for the few who could afford to buy anything, was awesome. Read more

The Transition ~ Part Two

March 13, 2021 | Ben Reach, Short Stories | Comments
Allen Ames left Ben’s office at 5, Ben having told him he’d ponder how best to approach a deal with Ed Tate to take over his string. Doc arrived for the Curmudgeons’ ritual end-of-week shared libation. Ben explained Allen’s dream as they sipped their first drams of The Macallan. “What do you suppose Ed Tate has got to live on in retirement?” Sam asked. Read more

The Transition ~ Part One

March 8, 2021 | Ben Reach, Short Stories | Comments
“Ed Tate is going to have to retire,” Sam Nixon M. D. told Ben Reach at breakfast at Millie’s Diner. “Why?” Ben asked. “Heart disease, plus emphysema. Lifelong smoker,” Sam said. “How old is Ed?” Ben asked. “Sixty-seven,” Sam said. Read more

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