Everybody Knows Where Broomhill's At!

Field trials for Setters and Pointers have been run in Manitoba since 1886 when the Manitoba Field Trial Club held its inaugural Derby and All-Age Stakes near Morris, about 50 miles south of Winnipeg.

Field trials are still held in Manitoba today, but further west, just outside of Broomhill, a small hamlet that most people in Manitoba have never heard of. But among field trialers, Broomhill is almost as well-known as Grand Junction Tennessee. When I interviewed Hall of Fame trainer and handler Colvin Davis last fall during the Manitoba Championship Trial, I asked him about Broomhill. Here is what he had to say.

Stay tuned for more video of Colvin and more on the history of field trials in Manitoba including first hand accounts from over 120 years ago!

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My Next Dog?

Currently I have plenty of dog-power available to me to hunt just about anything. So I am not in the market for another dog right now. But in a year or three, Lisa and I will probably welcome a new addition to the herd. And even though we don't know what breed of dog it will be, we know this: it will have a mainly white coat. Mainly white? Why?

Well it turns out that 50-year-old eyes are not great at seeing dogs with coats that act as camouflage in the field. I now have to put orange vests on my Weims every time we hunt just so I can keep track of them as they hunt or find them on point.

Without a vest, Souris is almost impossible to find in heavy cover,
even though she is wearing a blaze orange collar in this photo.

There are actually TWO weims in this shot; one pointing and one backing.
Both are wearing orange collars. Can you find them?

Last season I hunted with a couple of absolutely awesome English Setters brought over from Holland by my good friends Marjolein and Roel Kamman. The Setters are from Italian lines, were bred in France, and have mainly white coats. And even though they run fairly big, fly across fields and sprint through the heavy cover, they are a thousand percent easier to see than my Weims, especially when they are on point.

THIS is why I want a white dog.
They are so much easier to see in heavy cover.

So what are my choices? Well, in Volume One of my book on Pointing Dogs, I include a chart that indicates the various coat types and color combinations available in the Continental breeds.

Looking it over, it seems like the list is actually quite extensive. And when the British breeds (Pointers and setters) are included, it turns out that there are over 20 pointing breeds in which you can find dogs with a lot of white in the coat. So the long list looks like this:

English Setter, Pointer
Irish Red and White Setter
Épagneul Français (French Spaniel)
Épagneul Breton (Brittanny)
Braque du Bourbonnais
Braque de l'Ariège
Braque Saint Germain
Braque Francais (both types)
Old Danish Pointer
Burgos Pointer
GSP
GWP
GLP
Drentsche Patrijshond
Small Munsterlander
Large Munsterlander
Weim (sort of...see my blog post on the "Whitemaraner")
Bracco Italiano
Spinone
Pachon Navarro
Ca Mé Mallorqui
Cesky Fousek

By narrowing the list to only those breeds in which the majority of dogs have mainly white coats, it looks like this:

English Setter
Pointer
Irish Red and White Setter
Épagneul Français (French Spaniel)
Épagneul Breton (Brittanny)
Braque de l'Ariège
Braque Saint Germain
Old Danish Pointer
Drentsche Patrijshond
Small Munsterlander
Bracco Italiano
Spinone

And if I limit my search further, say by selecting only breeds that are relatively easy to find, offer a good selection of field-bred lines and are mainly selected for the type of hunting I do (80% upland birds, 20% waterfowl), the list gets even shorter:

English Setter
Pointer
Épagneul Français (French Spaniel)
Épagneul Breton (Brittanny)

And, finally, if I narrow it down to breeds with long tails (because I like long tails) only three breeds remain.

English Setter
Pointer
Épagneul Français (French Spaniel)

So over the next couple of years I will be keeping my eye on those breeds, looking for just the right breeder and just the right litter. In the meantime, I will just enjoy watching videos of them in action.

Here's an awesome video of some really nice Épagneuls Français.