The 2019 NGSPA National Championships inaugural running at the Sportmen's Association Field Trial Grounds outside Grovesprings, MO started on April 30th. Keith Bryant and myself made the 12 - 13 hr drive from Colorado and got in at approximately 4:00am Friday morning. Anticipating the possibilities as they say.
The drawing of braces happened Friday evening and as fate would have it Keith's dog, Tex, and Tripp were braced in the 16th brace. Amazing!!!
We were the first brace in the afternoon on Monday and both dogs hit the course with bent up excitement. At approximately 8 minutes Tripp had his only find where he was clean on his birds. At about this point Kieth lost contact with Tex.
Tripp continued forward with a hard race to the front, hitting all the likely cover for the ever elusive quail that had been released. Rimming fields and listening to me seemed like second nature, until it didn't.
At approximately 30 minutes and after a beautiful move to my left around a overgrown field, Tripp broke to the front where he made a fateful decision to take a narrow draw that paralleled a creek that we had to cross. Unbeknownst to me this particular draw is known as Vacuum Hollow because of what it does to dogs who venture into it.
Needless to say this was the last time I saw Tripp while he was under judgement. He ended up on the local dirt road that borders the grounds and exactly where the trial marshal, Andy Daugherty, said he would end up.
We had a great time and it was fantastic to handle and watch Tripp put down a great 30 minutes. His next opportunity will be in the National Open Shooting Dog Championship which will commence later in the event.
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