14th December - Novice Retriever Trial
Dove Valley Working Gundog Club held their last retriever trial of the 2023 season. This was a Novice Trial and the clubs 158 th Trial Meeting at Wentworth Woodhouse by kind permission of The Wentworth Park Shoot.
Judges were Keith Broomfield ,Dawn Scott , Angie Townsend & Stewart North
Chief Steward , Vanessa King
Steward of the Beat , Chris Flintoff
Our fabulous Team of Guns were
James Barnes, Henry Carney, Jacob Henry, Becky Wilkinson, Brian Wilshaw, Tom Wilshaw & Barry phillips.
Picking up today was Bob Seaman.
Thank you to a great team of helpers Sharon Kitson, Janna , Kate Phillips, Matt, Gary & Keith 
Dog Steward Cherryl Jones 
After checking the weather several times during breakfast , the day turned out perfectly and we even had wonderful sunshine.
Chris and his team lead the judges and competitors to the first drive. Judges Keith & Angie on the right took their dogs one side of the field while Dawn & Stewart lined their dogs out on the left. To make the trial flow the judges decided to run the trial as Odds & Evens.
Chris soon produced plenty of birds over the Guns and in true Dove Valley style , they shot perfectly. Once there was roughly 16 birds down. Chris stopped the drive to enable the dogs to work. Unfortunately we lost a few dogs during the early part of the drive. Judges put the dogs through their paces and all birds were quickly picked to enable the drive to start again. Once dogs had been sent to clear the area the Judges had their huddle and discussed with Chris where to go next.
6 dogs were lined out on some lovey rough cover in front of a wood ready to complete their third round. During this drive there was a couple of runners and judges asked for the drive to be stopped so dogs had a fair chance of picking the runners.
Drive resumed and birds were flying really well over the guns Becky had a spectacular cock bird followed by Jacob’s sharp reaction on a woodcock, James had some fabulous birds over him too. Tom was backing up his Dad just to make sure they were on the deck .
Unfortunately dogs continued to fall by the wayside until two dogs were left and Judges had tested them enough. TRIAL OVER !!!
FIRST PLACE winning THE DARLEY CUP donated by our Chairman James Barnes also theSPRINGFIELD TROPHY for GUNS CHOICE donated by Steve & Angie Lomas
GEOFF DOBBS with WOODCOCKHILL GRENADIER
SECOND PLACE winning THE NOVICE RETRIEVER TRIAL RUNNERS UP TROPHY
BRIAN JONES with AUCHENTORE BWYLL PENDEFIG
This has been my very first season as Field Trial Secretary , I am not going to lie it has been hard and very testing of patience but with an amazing committee team behind me, we got there!!!
See ya next year 
