I overheard somebody remark to my master the other day that I didn’t look a day over 6 years old, which was truly a compliment as I am actually 10.I was born on the 10th April 1995 in Sussex in England to a famous Scottish father and an English mother. Sarah Coomber-Smith, the breeder of Abbotsleigh Labradors, had decided that she needed to inject some pace into her line and so she took my mother, Deriolet Venus of Abbotsleigh, to Billy Steel in Scotland.

At that time Billy Snr had a dog by the name of Symington Clarerone of Leadburn that was winning more than his fair share of Field Trials and this was the dog that was introduced to my mother.

Whatever was in my father’s genes I inherited, as I just seemed to be able to be shown something a couple of times and I would remember it. This made John, my master very pleased and I really looked forward to my daily training sessions.

When I was 10 months old I was entered in my first competition which was a cold game Puppy Test for dogs under 2 years old. After the first two retrieves, which I made with great pace and style I overheard one judge remark to the other, “there’s got to be an error in the program, as the date of birth of that pup must be wrong.” It wasn’t-and I won!

A few months later I was entered in a Puppy Test in the morning and a Novice Test in the afternoon. I won in the morning, dropping 3 points out of 80, and came second in the afternoon. John was relieved that I did not win the Novice as it would have prevented me from entering anymore Puppy Tests. The next 3 years went in a flash of picking up on shoots and Fielding Trialing in the winters and competing in working tests in the summer. During that time I had 2 wins, 1 second, 3 thirds, 2 fourths, and 4 Certificates of Merit. In my spare time I also sired 30 puppies from 3 litters between 1997 and 2000.

In the spring of 2003 we moved to the United States and I am enjoying my new life hunting and retrieving quail, pheasant, and geese.