"Garth's Drake"
-- Image from an oil by George Earl, scanned from Enos Phillips, 1970, The True Pointer and His Ancient Heritage
"Price's Drake ("Garth's Drake") and Price's Belle"
--
Mr. R.J. Lloyd Price's Pointers "Drake" and "Belle".
EKC:
""842 Drake" -- Mr. R. Garth's, Q.C., Wimbledon, Surrey; breeder, owner; born 1867; colour, liver and white (still living and at the stud).
Pedigree: By "Garth's Rap" out of his "Doll" (see pedigree table).
Chief Performances: Field Trials, Stafford, 1868, 1st prize in the Pointer Puppy Stakes; 1st prize in the All-Aged Stakes, and winner (with "Mars") in the Pointer Braces Stakes; Shrewsbury, 1869, 1st prize in the Champion Stakes, and not placed in the Hawkstone Stakes for braces (with "Carl"); Southampton, 1870, 1st prize in the Southampton Stakes for all-aged pointer dogs, and divided the prize in the pointer braces; Shrewsbury, 1870, not placed in the pointer braces (with "Carl") and won the Champion Stakes for pointers."
-- EKC Studbook, 1874, Vol.I
"
"Brockton's Bounce" was a magnificent dog, a winner on the show bench, and of the first Field Trial in England.
"Newton's Ranger" was another of the early performers, and he was very staunch and brilliant, but it was in the next five years that the most extraordinary Pointer merit was seen, as quite incomparable was
"Sir Richard Garth's Drake", who was just five generations from the Spanish Pointer. "Drake" was rather a tall, gaunt dog, but with immense depth of girth, long shoulders, long haunches, and a benevolent quiet countenance. There was nothing very attractive about him when walking about at Stafford prior to his trial, but the moment he was down he seemed to paralyse his opponent, as he went half as fast again. It was calculated that he went fifty miles an hour, and at this tremendous pace he would stop as if petrified, and the momentum would cover him with earth and dust. He did not seem capable of making a mistake, and his birds were always at about the same distance from him, to show thereby his extraordinary nose and confidence. Nothing in his day could beat him in a field. He got some good stock, but they were not generally show form, the bitches by him being mostly light and small, and his sons a bit high on the leg. None of them had his pace, but some were capital performers, such as
"Sir Thomas Lennard's Mallard";
"Mr. George Pilkington's Tory";
"Mr. Lloyd Price's Luck of Edenhall",, winner of the Field Trial Derby, 1878;
"Lord Downe's Mars" and "Bounce", and
"Mr. Barclay Field's Riot". When Sir Richard Garth went to India and sold his kennel of Pointers at Tattersalls, Mr. Lloyd Price gave 150 guineas for "Drake".
-- Robert Leighton, 1910, Dogs and All About Them
""Brockton's Bounce",
"Statter's Major",
"Whitehouse's Hamlet",
"Garth's Drake"!
What names to conjure up visions of past glory in the game-fields of England!
Mention this quartet and you have named the four cornerstones in the foundation
of the Point breed. Add the name of
"Price's Champion Bang"
and you have heralded
the principal fountainhead as we know it in this country today."
-- The Sportsman's Bookshelf, Volume XIII, Hunting Dogs and Their Uses:
The Stackpole Company, Harrisburg, PA, 1951
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