Trials under the spotlight
They have never been more popular but herein lies a problem, says David Tomlinson. Can the increased number of triallers be catered for within the Kennel Club’s Code of Conduct?
FIELD trials have long been the pinnacle of the competitive gundog world but their current popularity – they have never been more popular than they are now – may well be their undoing. According to the Kennel Club’s J Regs, the rules that govern trialling in the UK, “A Field Trial should be run as nearly as possible to an ordinary day’s shooting”, but such an ideal is not something that is easy to achieve when you have a field of 24 retrievers and their handlers, all anxious to prove their ability.
Historically, trials were held at the invitation of the landowner, invariably someone who had a passion for both dogs and shooting. In contrast, today, most trials have to be paid for – and with pheasants or partridges costing at least £30 a bird, they can be expensive affairs. Instead of the entrants paying the full costs, these are generally defrayed by asking the team of guns to pay for their day’s sport. Even the IGL Retriever Championship now has paying guns, something that would no doubt have shocked the Edwardian gentlemen and women who held the first championship in 1909.
With only a small number of private shoots prepared to host a trial, most are now held on commercial shoots, which is where problems have arisen. A significant number of these do not follow the Code of Good Shooting Practice. The Code sets out the framework that enables shoot managers, guns, gamekeepers and their employees to deliver sustainable shooting, and should be compulsory reading for anyone who ventures into the shooting field, whether as a gun, beater or simply a dog handler. Shoots that flout the Code simply bring the whole sport into disrepute, with potentially dire consequences.
Last winter the Kennel Club’s Field Trial Committee made a significant and important change to its rules: any club applying for a licence to run a field trial this coming season has to agree that the trial ground conforms to the Code. Time will tell how effective this new ruling will be, but if it is ignored there’s a real danger that trialling will not have a future. Antis now have trialling very firmly in their sights, so it’s imperative that the sport is open to scrutiny. It should never be forgotten that spectators are welcome at trials, and some of those spectators may well be interested in other things than which dog wins.
The Code has five golden rules, all of which must be followed in order to deliver sustainable shooting. One of these is that, “Respect for game is paramount.” Too often in trials the game appears to be treated as little more than a feathered or furred training dummy. It’s usual in a trial for a dog to be sent from one end of the line to the other to give it a more challenging retrieve. Unless the bird it is sent for is certain to be dead, can this be regarded as ethical? Following the Code will require a whole new approach from the judges.
Another of the Code’s golden rules is that birds must never be released to replenish or replace any birds already released and shot that season. This is a rule that hasn’t been followed on a few of the commercial shoots where trials have been held. In certain continental countries it’s standard practice to release birds the day before, or even on the morning of a trial. Hopefully the Kennel Club’s rule change will rule out anything like that happening here.
Of course, trialling has always been controversial. In 1910, a field-trial judge wrote to The Field suggesting that pinioned cock pheasants might be released towards the end of a trial, giving any remaining dogs the chance to prove themselves and thus “greatly assist the judges in finding the best dog”. Fortunately it was an idea that, as far as I am aware, was never tried.
One rule in the Code that may cause problems for trials is that, “Shooting should be cancelled or stopped if adverse weather conditions mean that birds cannot be presented in a safe and appropriate sporting manner, or shot and retrieved safely.” I’ve been to trials that have continued in torrential downpours and even blizzards, where the birds certainly weren’t presented in a sporting manner. I suspect there would have been an outcry from the competitors if the judges had decided to abandon the event. It’s always been an unwritten rule that trialling continues regardless of the weather but this, too, might have to change.
Anyone who thinks that insisting that triallers follow the Code of Conduct is a lot of nonsense should look at the Hunt Saboteurs Association’s (HSA) website. Here you will read that a small group of saboteurs went to last year’s IGL Retriever Championship. Their aim wasn’t to disrupt the event but to discover “how best to sabotage next year’s championships”, where the organisers “should certainly expect mass sabotage”. The HSA argues that, “It is sickening that large numbers of factory farmed birds are gunned down simply for dog trainers to win themselves medals.”
This threat is a very real one, and there’s no doubt that if trialling is to continue in anything like its current form a change in attitude is essential from the trialling community. Otherwise, there’s the distinct possibility that future field trials will depend on dummies and not game.
Respect for game is paramount. Too often in trials game appears to be treated as little more than a feathered or furred training dummy