Trials and tribulation

LAST MONTH, THE International Gundog League (IGL) cancelled this year’s Retriever Championship. It was hardly unexpected news. If the IGL had decided to go ahead with the event, the biggest in the gundog calendar, it would certainly have been newsworthy. The last time the Championship was cancelled was in 1967, due to foot and mouth disease, while it wasn’t held during the war years 1939 to 1945 and 1914 to 1919.

The logistics of trying to organise the Championship, scheduled to be held at Ampton in Suffolk at the