American Field sanctioned trials can be anything from horse-bakc to walking. National Bird Hunters Asociation, US Shoot to Complete, Shooting Dog walking and other variations. 99.9% of thease trials are run on a single course wether they are on state supported grounds or a shooting preserve. Yes they use pen raised birds.
The majority of single course Horse-Back trials are run the same way on pen raised birds 90% of the time.
Keep in mind that the difference between a 1 hour walking trial course (150-250 acres)and a 1 hour horse-back course is run on about 700-900 acres.
These are still what we consider the little league trials.
The Major League Open All-Age trials are mostly run on private plantations, Open Prairies in SK, ND, SD, MT, WA, ID
Only a very few of them are run on State supported grounds
98% of these trials are run on wild birds only.
Another thing about a Major trails is it is called a Championship, Classic, Free-For-All, or Inventational.
They are also National quailifing trials and are required torun on a minimum of 3 1 hour contigous courses. Allot of these places have 61Hr contiguos courses.
During a All-Age trail you will ride in the gallery about 6-7 miles each hour. The handler covers twice the ground and the dog about 3x as much in an hour. It takes a good horse and a tuff ass to cover this much ground in a day.
A typical major trail will draw 80-120 dogs. The are run in braces for 1 hour. 3 braces in the morning and 3 braces in the afternoon for a total of 6 braces or 12 dogs per day. It is also normal to pick up a brace or two each day.
If a dog fails to back, you must pick your dog up.
If the dog busts the birds or fails to stop for birds it goes back on the dog wagon. If your dog points a marked bird, pick-it-up.
If your dog does not run enough or looks bad on point. Pick-it up.
Your dog must be seen atleast every 10 mins. on a 1 hr course. Failure to show your dog after 10 mins. is grounds for disqualification. When the judge calls time you have the same 10 mins. to produce your dog. Either by finding him on point or bringing him back to the judges.
A typical day will start off with break-awy at 8AM if both dogs complete the first hour they are picked up and are judged accordingly. You may also have to ride an additional mile on the course before you put down a new brace of dogs. You could also wait 10 mins for 1 of the handlers to produce a dog at time.
One these major trials running 100 or more dogs may also run 7 days a week for 2 weeks strait.
At the Contintal Field Trial on the Dixie Plantation in 01 I ran 21 dogs in that trail and had a dog to run almost every day for the 2 1/2 weeks this trail was going on.
At some of these trails they also do a call-back. A call-back is when the judges say they want to see a couple dogs run for a 2 hr brace in order to name a Champion. At some trials the Judges will name a dog of the day. That dog is subject to run in the call-back after all the other dogs have run. This could extend the trail another couple days.
Currently The Dominion Chicken Championship is being run just outside of Stoughton, SK they should rap this one up soon. Next the Trials move to Broomhill, MB and will run there for the next 2 weeks. I don't know how far you are away from it, but you should go and ride a day or 2 in the gallery if you can.