Sprockers: A Cross To Bear?

As the dust settles after “sprockergate”, David Tomlinson muses on what the Kennel Club and the trialling and gundog worlds can learn from the scandal.

- David Tomlinson

THOUGH THE STORM of “sprockergate” may have passed (News and Gundogs, 18 January), it has left behind a lot of stirred and muddy water that will take a long time to clear. For those who missed the sprockergate story, it was the accusation that sprockers — cockers crossed deliberately with springers — were being run in cocker field trials, giving their handlers an unfair advantage. Though there had long been rumours of sprockers competing in cocker trials, the matter came to public attention when a group of 20 A-panel spaniel judges wrote to the Kennel Club (KC) with their accusation. The story featured in national newspapers, including The Sun and The Times.

Spaniel trialling is a largely male pursuit in which there have always been bitter rivalries. Divisions and arguments over sprockergate, many aired over social media, have upset, even infuriated, lots of people. The inevitable result is that there are those in the spaniel world who won’t run their dogs if a certain judge is officiating or even if a rival handler with whom they have fallen out is competing. It is not a happy situation and it is one that the relatively small world of spaniel trialling will take a long time to get over.