Tag: Ferrel Miller

Memories of the Free-For-All

January 17, 2025 | National Free-For-All Championship, Remembrances | Comments
It was my privilege to report the National Free-For-All Championship at Sedgefields, Safford, Alabama a few years just before its discontinuance as a three-hour stake. It was unique, and its loss was a blow to the sport.  First run in 1916 by the National Field Trial Club, it was first won by John Proctor (HOF 1954), which had won the National Championship the week before after a two-hour second series. Read more

My Thanksgiving

November 27, 2024 | Ferrel Miller, Poetry | Comments
This Thanksgiving I give thanks For the opportunities To watch great all-age dogs Looking back on those years I give thanks for the chances God gave me to write up The best dogs of those days Read more

Before and After DNA

July 24, 2023 | Ben Reach, Short Stories | Comments
Before DNA proof-of-parentage became possible, practical things were different in many ways, Ben Reach and Sam Nixon MD contemplated in their end-of-day musings over drams of The Macallan in Ben’s library-conference room. Nowadays, proof of “who’s your pappy?” was answerable conclusively by a Q-tip swab of saliva submitted to a lab test for humans or beasts, thanks to DNA science.  This had revolutionized pointing dog breeding practices starting in summer Read more

The Worst Injustice

December 10, 2022 | Ben Reach, The American Field | Comments
“What was the worst injustice you ever saw committed in field trials?” Sam asked Ben on a rainy Friday afternoon as Ben poured them drams of The Macallan in Ben’s library-conference room. Sam was looking to hear a lively story to end his depression after a tough week with patients. “That’s easy. It was Bernie Matthys’s banning of Miller’s White Powder and Ferrel Miller from field trials.” Read more

My Thanks to Field Trials

October 18, 2021 | Commentary, Remembrances | Comments
With age we worry we have not expressed thanks to all those we owe thanks. So here I say thanks to all involved with pointing dog field trials for their countless gifts to my joy. Yes, joy, pure and simple, for field trials have meant pure fun for me. I claim no special knowledge or skill about field trials beyond appreciation of their entertainment value. I simply enjoy them, watching Read more

When You Ride a Borrowed Horse

September 29, 2020 | Prose | Comments
When you ride a borrowed horse At a bird dog field trial You are thirty seconds away From a mishap Unless the horse beneath you Is that rare breed that protects you From your own ineptitude Read more

The Switch

October 28, 2018 | Short Stories | Comments
Al Hart was a sport, by every definition. And he could afford to be. He owned vast Texas oil and gas interests, plus vaster Texas surface lands, more important in his mind, for they nurtured what he loved best, quail, bobwhites and blues. Owned vast acreages in South Texas, West Texas including the Panhandle, and Central Texas, all the quail regions. Owned them the Old Fashioned Way, by inheritance. To manage his quail hunting, Al employed Buck Branch, a Texas Bird Dog Man in the Jack Harper-Tony Terrell-Dean Lord-Gary Pinalto tradition. Read more