1940 SHEEPDOG TRIALS in Wales magazine article, Cambrian Stakes Border Collies

Description

Selling is a 1940 magazine article about:
SHEEP DOG TRIALS
Title: SHEEP DOG TRIALS IN LLANGOLLE
Author: Sara Bloch
Subtitled "Trained Collies Perform Marvels of Herding In the Cambrian Stakes, Open to the World”
This magazine article is about the Cambrian sheepdogs trials in Wales. Think of the movie
Babe
, but with  Border Collies, no pig.
Quoting the first page The four of us had just arrived at the Hotel Royal, a smallish inn despite the dignity of its name, in the Vale of Llangollen, North Wales. Our dining table faced the western window, past which the sun splashed the evening sky with sweeping and majestic color.
The distant hill, Dinas Bran, surmounted by its ancient ruin, glimmered with a secret magic, while just below us the River Dee catapulted joyously over a small dam. It gave no hint, at this high and lovely spot, that at its mouth the turbulent tides swept so treacherously "across the sands of Dee."
We thirsted to explore this delicious land, to ascend its mountains, traverse its valleys, follow the wanderings of the Dee. But our little waitress interrupted us. "You've surely not come to Llangollen without planning to see the sheep dog trials, have you?"
"Do sheep dogs have trials, too?" murmured the wit of our party. "I thought they led quiet and contented lives."
"Oh, these are not that kind of trial," answered the girl, mistrusting the pun. "These are contests that the dogs run against time to prove their cleverness in handling sheep. The best dogs get prizes. It's a national sport, international, really. People from all over the world come here to witness it. The hotel gives us the whole afternoon off. I've not missed a single trial in twelve years."
The next morning broke calm and cool-a hint of sunlight, a promise of clouds. We made our way over Llangollen Bridge, a sturdy, slightly humpbacked little structure with four or five arches, whose dark gray stones have withstood the onslaughts of some six hundred years.
A sort of holiday expectancy permeated the air. In the open meadows beyond a wood people were converging from all directions. A jolly lot they were, talking in their soft guttural language. Not a word of it could we understand. We had not realized that Welsh was so utterly foreign a tongue.
Soon we reached the Vivod estate on which the trials were taking place. Off to the side was the manor house, gray stone with turrets and terraces. Vaguely distinguishable as they wandered back and forth were the guests of the owner, the ladies in wide-brimmed hats, the gentlemen in formal attire. Among them moved attendants in uniform, covering small tables with white luncheon cloths.
But neither the house nor its guests had more than a nebulous reality; for close at hand, stretched out in a huge semicircle, sat the great mass of onlookers, who, for this day at least, most truly owned the fields. We sat among them.
The trials had long since begun. An enthusiastic little boy at my side told me in excellent English that the ninth dog was at that moment engaged in looking for the sheep. The program the child gave us was a four-page folder. At the top, in large, black capitals we read: "CAMBRIAN STAKES (OPEN TO THE WORLD)." Then there was a list of the prizes.
The rest of the page was divided into two parts, and we learned that two trials were being held simultaneously, one here and one on the neighboring Tynycelyn estate.
We learned also that the Cambrian Stakes were run with one dog each, handling three sheep, but that there were also special stakes to be run with two dogs each and six sheep. Following these there were to be the final Cambrian Stakes, to be run by the four best dogs from both sides.
We were pulled from our absorption in the program by a stentorian voice: "Dog number ten, Jix. Trainer, J. M. Wilson of Homlmshaw, Moffat."
From somewhere in the crowd a small but broad-shouldered shepherd emerged holding in one hand a crook almost as long as himself and in the other a leash at the end of which trotted a small black collie…"
7” x 10”, 16 pages, 17 B&W photos
These are pages carefully removed from an actual 1940 magazine.
40D4
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