This year marks the 102nd running of the dogs at Ames, a place that - in the words of center director Dr. If hoofbeats, barking and "singing" - the hollering of the handlers to their dogs - fills the air, so does tradition. As a result, the "gallery" is, essentially, a cavalry, with dozens or sometimes even a few hundred spectators on horseback following the competing "brace" of dogs and their companion handlers, scouts and judges. Thompson isn't kidding: Each field trial course is a serpentine path that winds through 11 miles of timber, open ground and swamp. “It’s a spectator sport, but a spectator’s got to have a horse to get the best view,” said Nick Thompson, 55, who acts as a “scout” during the field trials, which means he helps keep an eye on the competing dogs. View Gallery: 2017 National Championship for Bird Dogsįor an almost two-week period that ends Feb. 24, hundreds of people will encounter those signs, many for the first time, as they make their way to the National Field Trial Championship for Bird Dogs at the historic Ames Plantation, a working farm, education and research center planted like a large footprint across an 18,000-acre chunk of Fayette and Hardeman counties, some 62 miles east of Memphis near Grand Junction.
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