Midland Counties Labrador Retriever Club thanks Sporting Saint and Skinner's dog food for sponsoring our event.

A.V. Retriever Working Test - Sunday 24th August 2025

The Midland Counties Labrador Retriever Club welcomed our Open competitors to the final A.V. Retriever Working Test of the season on Sunday 24th August. This time a Walked Up on Field Trial lines on fabulous ground at Stoke Rochford by kind permission of our landowner, Mr Neil McCorquodale. The undulating parkland provided superb conditions for an Open test, allowing the judges to expertly simulate Field Trial conditions. There was water to cool the dogs down, fences to test their agility and long grass which truly tested their hunting prowess on a range of seen, memory and blind retrieves.

It was well attended, with 27 dogs taking part who were expertly judged by Godfrey Lowe and Henrik Vilendal our A Panel judges, Lucie Lowe and Tom Unwin, our Non-Panel judges and on behalf of the club I would like to thank them for giving up their valuable time to support this event. They gave all of our handlers every chance to demonstrate the skills of their dogs.

I would like to thank all of our competitors for taking part and for being such a friendly and welcoming bunch of people. It ended up being quite a long day thanks to plenty of really impressive retrieves, so your patience was appreciated. We hope to see you all again at a test or trial in the future. Thanks also must go to our generous sponsors Sporting Saint and Skinners who donate great prizes for all of our events.

We were again blessed with plenty of helpers, which had a huge impact on the success of the day. My MCLRC colleagues - Liz Robinson who is so generous with her time and support, from viewing the grounds with me, to suggesting judges and helpers, providing endless documents and always being on the end of the phone to answer every single stupid question I can think of! Kira Leith Ross – who has given brilliant support on both days and also did a great job of handing over the reins to a complete newbie. Emma, Elaine and Evie - who came along to a working test for the first time yesterday and are more accustomed to a show ring, but were throwing dummies, firing shots and were a fantastic help all day. I should also mention Joan Hayes, who managed an incredibly impressive 22 years as Field Trial Secretary and also served as President of the club. She kindly introduced me to the landowners for our two tests this season, so without her help we would not have secured these fantastic grounds.

Then there were our expert dummy throwers, Ken, Richard and Dan who were superb – I’m sure some of our competitors wished their skills weren’t quite as impressive ! Gwen for coaching me on dog stewarding, Emma and Amy for game carrying all day and everyone that provided endless amounts of moral support and helped to set up and pack up at the end of the day.

So now it’s time to pack away those dummies and prepare for our two Field Trials.

First up

Novice Stake at Stubton on Wednesday 29th October

Followed by

2-day Open Stake at Tregynon on the 3rd & 4th December

Hope to see some of you then.

Finally, here are the results from yesterday.

1st – Turpingreen Ellis handled and owned by Janet Blair

2nd – Cardueae Kahli handled and owned by Mia Jobson

COMs –

* Abbotsmere High Flyer owned and handled by Morris Abbott

* Jassporta Bespoke owned and handled by Julie Kelvie