The quest for Scott
A call to our readers – “The quest for Scott”
The internet is an amazing tool – ‘SEO’ and other magical things make searching for specific information online a very accurate tool. So, if I put my questions in writing, surely it will come up in someone’s search one day, and someone will be able to answer my questions. Consider this a message in a bottle, from a pointer enthusiast on a remote pacific island!
At the fountainhead of a sire line present in most working lines in the UK today, is a dog called Scott, imported from Denmark by John Nash after running in the Derby in 1975. He was used extensively at stud in the UK and Ireland, but it was as a paternal grandsire that he came to prominence. When Scott’s son Moanruad Aron sired a litter with Embercombe Tig in 1981, the litter was split three ways between Nash’s’ Moanruad in Ireland, Patricia Woods’ Spinningloch kennel, and of course Stephen Frank’s Embercombe Kennel. The only male pup ‘lucky’ enough to go to the Embercombe kennel, “Embercombe lucky” is arguably the most influential sire in UK working pointers of modern times. Hard running and perhaps a little trigger happy at times, He personified the falconers dog, never false pointing, and standing game close enough to produce birds on command. However, it is his litter brother that went to Patricia Wood, ‘FTCH Wishy Washy of Spinningloch’ that has left a lasting sire line. Wishy Washy is found as a fountainhead in his own right, behind a great percentage of many modern trials winners in the direct sire line.
My question is this. Who remembers Scott? Who has a photo of him? For a dog that sired so many litters, he seems lost in history. I would welcome any information on him, and would love a photo of him. Scott’s sire line, the Woodfield Jock line, is well documented elsewhere online, principally on the aaens.dk website. I am told that Peter Brokholm, who at the time was president of the Danish pointer club, organized the importation of Woodfield Jock from Finland to increase bone and leg in the Danish dogs at the time, as they were increasingly smaller and appearing more feminine. As it appears, Woodfield Jock was the sire of Brokholm’s Mato, who is sire of Scott. However, I am not looking for him. Where is Scott?
That this blood should appear on a remote collection of islands in the Pacific Ocean called New Zealand is quite interesting. When Vaughan Williams of Christchurch retired in 1980, He imported two dogs for his own use. One, Scott of Spinningloch, was a double grandson of Scott, the Danish dog in question, from Patricia Wood. The other was a bitch from Ireland, based upon Michael J. Early’s Kilmacud lines, and from the Glenowlen / Int. FTCH Glencree Heather dam line. Both of these sire and dam lines, in their day, would have been quite ‘experimental’ in nature to import, yet have proven to be lasting sire and dam lines that have shaped the working breed in the UK, and interestingly, survived this long, all the way down here at the bottom of the world.
I leave you with a scanned photo of Embercombe Lucky, (for the first time online for all to see, courtesy of Pooky Kev) in the hope that you can send me a picture and some info of Scott in return. Please feel free to use the contacts page above if you have something to contribute, we would love to hear from you.
Embercombe Lucky
