Straight Forward, our four year old setter female, won the Grand National Grouse and Woodcock Invitational April 10,11,12, 2013, besting a select field of 13 others who qualified through Championship placements to be invited to what some call the “Super Bowl” for cover dogs. Dave Hughes was at the helm and Mike Spotts provided scouting services for “Cracker’s” work over her three consecutive days of hunting. “Cracker” started off on day one with a four evenly spaced woodcock find performance that stands out as among the most exciting and accomplished efforts in the twenty-three year history of this event. Her birdwork was the result of a hard driving, determined effort that took her to likely objectives. It seemed that after each find, Cracker would just bore ahead and be found on point in the next inviting cover. Her style and intensity on point leave nothing to be desired. “Cracker” was named “Day Dog” for this start to the Invitational.
Day two featured more of the same, multiple finds executed perfectly on both grouse as well as woodcock. Again, not only her birdwork, but “Cracker’s” fast, determined and classy moving hunting effort took her to the top of the judges’ list for the Day 3 call-back.
In the finals, “Cracker” was paired with last year’s winner, Ch. Terharr’s Elvis. Three inches of sleet and crusted snow greeted the brace as they cut loose at 9am. “Cracker” was energetic and proved that she had the stamina and endurance to go strong three days in a row as she lit out and stayed hard at it the entire hour. At 50 “Cracker” came across a small pond and broke through the thin ice. Handler and gallery members were on their way to the scene when she emerged, shook herself off and continued undeterred. Seconds later she stopped promptly on the wild flush of a woodcock. This was the only bird contact for the day as conditions were extreme. Continuing Cracker finished still driving and was found pointing where grouse tracks in the snow were shown to the judge, but no birds were flushed.