American shooting dog stakes were just taking hold in the 1950s when Gerald Tracy
came on the scene, an impassioned enthusiast whose success training his own bird
dogs led to a career as a professional handler. More than 50 years later, the legacy
of Gerald Tracy continues through his son, George Tracy, grandsons Mike Tracy and
Luke Eisenhart, and granddaughter Jeanette Tracy.
Mae Tracy’s warm, blue eyes sparkle as she affectionately recalls the determination
of her husband, the late Gerald Tracy, when he went pro in 1957. Shoot?ing dog field
trials were just becoming popular, and Gerald had a knack for training bird dogs
for the highly competitive one-hour horseback stakes.
“At the time, I was doubtful. So was his father, George,” says Mae. “I was afraid
we would starve. We almost did at times when customers didn’t pay. Dogs loved him.
He was firm when he trained, but they respected him and wanted to please him.” Before
going pro, Gerald had been winning nearly all the amateur stakes he entered and
training other people’s dogs for some time. It was enough to convince Gerald he
could make it on the major field trial circuit with a string of dogs.
“The sport was open to anyone at the time,” Mae says.
Hard work lay behind success, and Gerald and Mae had plenty of hard work to give.
They bought their farm in Glenville, Pa., in 1945 at the end of World War II while
Gerald was on a 30-day Navy leave. After the war Gerald was sent to the Pacific
for seven months, while Mae lived on the farm with their 4-year-old daughter, without
a car, telephone or electricity, tending the chickens and hogs.
Mae had fallen in love with Gerald when she met him. “His father was the church
chorister, and we went Christmas caroling,” she says. “Gerald was such a rascal,
so outgoing. I said to myself, ‘That’s the man I’m going to marry.’”
When Gerald decided to ditch his work as a bricklayer and follow his heart in becoming
a professional bird dog trainer, much was at stake. The family had grown to four
children. Mae didn’t know how they would make ends meet or how she could possibly
keep up with all the work at home. The farm now included cattle, horses and a lot
more dogs.
People trusted Gerald with their dogs and knew he could produce results. Long before
going professional, “his first trophy from a field trial was won with a German Shorthaired
Pointer,” says Mae. “The owners wanted Gerald to train the dog to win against pointers
and setters.”
Through the years, “Gerald had a lot of winners. Some owners would call him and
say they wanted their dog finished in a month,” she continues.
The life of a professional field trial competitor is anything but easy on a family.
Huge gaps of time are spent on the road going to trials. In the winter, they travel
South to train dogs on quail and compete in trials. When the motor home and horse
trailer pull up at home in the spring, it signals the beginning of long, 12-hour
training days that often start at daybreak.
Mae’s consolation about the arduous lifestyle was knowing that children loved horses
and dogs, and hers would have plenty to keep them company. She also knew that putting
children and puppies together was good for both.
Their second son, George, and youngest daughter, Christie, were the ones who followed
their father to the kennel. “George worked with the dogs since he was 10, always
helping his father in the summers and after school,” says Mae. “Chris was the kennel
girl. She would help road the dogs.”
The countryside at the time was woven with open farmland and abundant wild birds
suitable for hunting on horseback with gundogs. All along the Eastern Seaboard were
gundog enthusiasts eager to send their dogs to trainers like Gerald. Summertime
brought an extension of the field trial season with Gerald’s Trachaven Kennels often
swelling to 100 dogs. Alongside the usual English Setters and English Pointers were
German Shorthaired Pointers, Labrador Retrievers and Brittanys. Assistants were
hired to help with the additional dogs.
True to his roots, “Gerald was always looking out for the working man,” Mae says.
“He kept his rates low and would tell them, ‘I’ll work that dog for you.’” Many
clients, particularly local ones, would come along and help with the dogs at trials.
Some would handle their dogs in amateur stakes.
Hard work led to success. Gerald reached a point where he had to turn dogs away,
and he never advertised for business. He built a handling business with clients
like lrvin Mohnkern, owner of Rocky River Buck, an English Pointer male whom Gerald,
with help from George, handled to become the first Top Shooting Dog Award winner
in 1983, and John Asfeld of Reading, Pa. The same year Rocky River Buck was honored,
Gerald was inducted into the Field Trial Hall of Fame, a pinnacle of his success.
One thing was certain, Mae says. “Gerald didn’t want his children to be field trialers.
He didn’t want them to go through the ups and downs of field trials. After Gerald,
we didn’t want any more dog trainers in the family.”
The Second Generation
Gerald and Mae passed on to their children their hard work ethic. George Tracy also
inherited his father’s love for bird dogs, not to mention his knack for training
them to locate and point birds.
At the unbelievable age of 12, George began competing as a professional after adult
competitors complained that the Tracy boy was winning too much. Though George was
mostly handling dogs in local open stakes for his father and John Asfeld, he competed
alongside grown men.
George was also a star athlete at South Western High School in Hanover, Pa., where
he started for the Mustang football and baseball teams. Upon graduation, a college
scholarship and opportunity to play semi-pro baseball awaited him, but George only
wanted to train and handle dogs. Instead, he began working part time for Gerald,
while learning to finish concrete.
A friendly, blue-eyed blonde, Mary Harpster, caught his eye while in high school,
and they began dating. In 1967, George married his sweetheart. Mary Tracy was his
soul mate and would share his dedication to the sport. In the early years, she scouted
for her husband assisting him in the field with dogs. In 1995 the Bird Dog Foundation
honored the Tracys as Life Patron members; Mary’s plaque cites her as an equal partner
in the success of their Summerhill Kennels.
Gerald offered George a full-time job working with him at Trachaven in February
1969. As he honed his training skills, George acquired a preference for big-ranging
dogs, those that require a bit more handling to control yet have the stamina to
finish in a flourish. He became a hands-on trainer with old-fashioned ways and a
disdain for short cuts. In 1970, George won his first championship, the Northeastern
Open, with one of Gerald’s dogs, Trachaven Blitz.
“George thinks like a dog,” Mary says. “Many times I’d be scouting for him and couldn’t
find the dogs, but he would know exactly where they were. He’s demanding, but also
affectionate with them.”
In 1978, George and Mary began Summerhill Kennels, locating less than a mile up
the road from Gerald and Mae’s place. The couple had four children. The youngest
two, Mike and Jeanette, born 16 months apart, virtually “grew up on the field trial
circuit,” Mary says.
The 1980s and 1990s ushered in several top shooting dogs that helped to boost George’s
handling career. George handled four dogs — all four were later inducted into the
Field Trial Hall of Fame — to Open Championship wins: Grouse Ridge Will, Guard Rail,
Bases Loaded and Calico’s Rebellious Sue. A male out of Rebellious Sue, Calico’s
Thrillogy, was inducted into the 2009 Field Trial Hall of Fame.
Along with the dogs, George and Mary were bonding with their clients, establishing
lifelong friendships and partnerships. Their longest client, Dom Conicelli of Conshohocken,
Pa., has placed dogs with them since the late 1960s. Many of their clients’ dogs
live out their lives at their kennel, competing well into their senior years.
One memorable dog was Bases Loaded, an English Pointer male owned by Jack Sanchez
who became a 10X Open Champion and 11X Runner-Up Champion when “there were not as
many trials as today,” George says.
“We’ve had some real good dogs,” he says, pausing.
Hamilton’s Blue Diamond (“Jet”) was unmistakably memorable. In 1997, Jet won the
Top Shooting Dog Derby Setter and Top Shooting Dog Setter awards, honors based on
points accumulated in competitions as a derby. No setter has yet repeated the dual
feat. By 3 years of age, the English Setter male had won eight championships, six
in one year.
Owned by clients Tommy and Bonnie Ham?il?ton, Jet took fondly to George. “Only George
could road him,” says Mary. “We always thought he was Bases Loaded reincarnated.”
Sadly, Jet’s field trial career was cut short when he was 4 years old. George vividly
recalls the National Pheasant Open Championship in Baldwinsville, N.Y., when Jet
stood staunch on point while bees swarmed his body, stinging him horrifically. Jet
was rushed to a veterinarian in nearby Connecticut for treatment, but the dog suffered
a compromised immune system. He retired at his owners’ horse farm in Kentucky, dying
in 2006.
For two years, in 1998 and 1999, Jet was the leading setter sire in the country.
“We built our kennel with Blue Diamond,” George says, a tribute to the dog’s success
as a producing sire.
Rattling off her husband’s career statistics, Mary, the business manager, is proud
of the successes. “He’s won 158 Open Championships and had 132 Runners-Up,” she
says. “His 100th win came in 1995 with CH Rambling Rebel Creek.”
In the elite world of American Field’s Top Shooting Dog Award winners, George has
handled four: Bases Loaded, the pointer male owned by Jack Sanchez, in 1988; Foxfire’s
Rhea, a pointer female owned by Jim and Judy Cohen, in 1993; Loaded Lou, a pointer
female owned by Brady Fisher, in 1996; and Hamilton’s Blue Diamond, the setter male
owned by the Hamiltons, in 1998. George also helped Gerald handle the first Top
Shooting Dog, Rocky River Buck. A dog that wins must be a strong performer in field
trials throughout the season.
Owners and handlers of Top Shooting Dog and Amateur Shooting Dog Award winners receive
a green blazer, with an emblem and year sewn on the pocket, similar to the one presented
to winners of the Masters Golf Championship. Handlers like George have an impressive
collection of emblems on their jackets. At award banquets, past winners wear their
green blazers, signifying the honor.
In addition to handling four Top Shooting Dog winners, George has won the Purina
Top Shooting Dog Handler of the Year Award 11 times — more than anyone. The honor
is based on total points earned by all dogs handled during the competition year.
The hard work ethic instilled by his father has served him well.
The Third Generation
Gerald Tracy, who died in 2003 at the age of 81, lived to see two of his grandchildren
become professional handlers. “Pap,” as he was lovingly called by his grandchildren,
helped develop grandson Luke Eisenhart, even remaining active in field trials a
couple of years longer to help him get started.
Luke is the son of Christie Tracy, Gerald and Mae’s daughter who loved the dogs.
Christie married Rick Eisenhart, the son of her father’s client Merv “Ike” Eisenhart.
Down the road at Summerhill Kennels, Luke’s cousin Mike Tracy was learning the ropes
training under his father, George. An athlete like his father, Mike started for
the South Western High Mustang football team and through his junior year the basketball
team. Five colleges, including The Ohio State University and University of West
Virginia, recruited Mike to play football.
But, like his father, Mike preferred training shooting dogs. “He was running dogs
and winning everything,” says Mary.
Mike had an early start with dogs. When he was 7 years old, barely as tall and certainly
not as powerful as the English Pointer male “Andy” he handled, Mike took second
in a local Amateur Derby stakes. As a 10-year-old, Mike won the Pennsylvania Open
Puppy Stakes with an English Pointer female “Alice,” and when he was 13, he won
the Pennsyl?vania Open Shooting Dog of the Year Award with an English Pointer male,
Enhancement Snap, competing with local professionals three times his age. At 17,
he won the 1993 Keystone Open Shooting Dog Championship with Joaquin Sanchez’s pointer
male Rocky River Hank.
Recalling going to trials as a teenager, Mike says, “My parents never treated me
like a little kid. They expected a lot out of me and never allowed short cuts. I
remember before trials pleading with mom not to yell at me in front of everyone.
She waited. When we got home, she let me have it.”
Mike also remembers Pap and professional trainer Harold Ray telling him he would
always compare his current dogs to his early achievers, dogs like Fringe Benefit
and Enhancement Hy Striker. “That has proved to be true,” Mike says. “In my mind
few dogs are as good as those first ones, but I’ve learned not to compare them.”
Like his father, Mike was forced to become a professional handler at a young age.
When he was 17, adult competitors asked to even the playing field by designating
Mike a professional handler. “I was running dad’s dogs in local and amateur trials,”
Mike says. “I had no intention of becoming a pro. I had two years left of high school.
I just wanted to go to amateur events and have fun.”
During high school Mike became fond of Jessi Gobrecht, who began helping him road
dogs. She quickly learned to ride horses, a must for the girlfriend of a shooting
dog handler. A few years later they were married. Today, Mike and Jessi, a first-grade
teacher, are the parents of two sons, Aidan, 5, and Evan, 2, and a new baby girl,
Ava Victoria, born Novem?ber 27, 2009.
When he graduated from high school, Mike began work?ing full time for his father
at Summer?hill Kennels. Mike and George each have their own string of dogs, which
is determined by the client and dog. Some dogs train better under Mike and others
under George. When Mike was 11 George let him handle dogs for Dr. Roger and Susan
Duerksen, and they have stayed with Mike as their handler. Talisman (“Blitz”), an
English Pointer male who won the National Open Shooting Dog Stakes in 2006 and 2009,
is one of their dogs.
“Blitz is a dog that always rises to the occasion,” says Mike. “He can sense when
it counts and never lets me down. Susan picked him out when he was a pup, and she
gave me plenty of time to develop him.”
Though they are alike in many ways, George is a high-drive trainer, and Mike is
more easygoing. They both like classy dogs that are intelligent and have good noses.
Mike particularly looks for trainable dogs that can be shaped into top shooting
dogs. He prefers bird dogs that are not as far-ranging as some on the circuit.
A six-time winner of the Shooting Dog Handler of the Year Award, Mike ranks second
in the standings behind his father, an 11-time winner. At 23, Mike was the youngest
handler to win the prestigious award. At award banquets, Mike thanks his clients
and his family. With tears in his eyes, he says, “I have the best owners — without
them I couldn’t do this.”
One goal of Mike’s that so far has slipped through his fingers is handling the Top
Shooting Dog Award winner. George has won with four dogs. His cousin, Luke, has
won with two dogs.
“As a kid I always knew I wanted to train and handle dogs,” says Luke.
Growing up in the footsteps of Pap, Luke learned as a boy how to start puppies on
flushing birds and train them to point stylishly. When he was only 7 years old,
Luke won a half-hour shooting dog stake with Rocky River Rambo, an English Pointer.
Luke also frequently accompanied Grandpa Ike Eisenhart to trials. Ike won the 2006
Amateur Shooting Dog Award with Maple Valley Thunder.
At age 16, Luke was competing professionally. When he was 19, he won the North Carolina
Championship with an English Pointer male, See Ya Tyler. He grew accustomed to days
that start at 5 a.m. in order to work 16 or more dogs when it is cool. His senior
year of high school, he worked half days at Trachaven with Gerald. When Gerald retired,
Luke’s father, Rick Eisenhart, bought the farm. Luke took over Trachaven Kennels,
adopting Pap’s kennel name as his own and building his own string of dogs and clientele.
Thirteen years after going pro, Luke handled the 2007 Top Shooting Dog Award winner,
Sugarknoll Buckshot, an English Pointer male owned by Peter and Christine Del Collo.
The year marked a turning point for Luke. “Buck” went on to become the 2008 U.S.
Shooting Dog Invitational Champion.
Not long after winning the Purina award, Luke married Tammy Davis, the daughter
of professional all-age handler Tommy Davis, the first recipient of the All-Age
Handler of the Year Award in 1989. Tammy, an emergency-room nurse at John Hopkins
Hospital in Baltimore, was a welcome addition. Sons Austin, 7, and Hunter, 2, complete
the family. “I’ve been very fortunate,” says Luke. “We’re a team.”
Since she was a 10-year-old, Tammy helped her father with his dogs every summer
when he trained in Canada. Thus, she often scouts for Luke at field trials. “I really
love it,” she says. “We can read each other’s minds and work well together.”
A repeat Top Shooting Dog Award came this year, when Luke handled The Insider, an
English Setter male owned by John Fort of Camden, S.C., to the lofty honor. At the
award banquet, Fort explained that Luke took a first-year shooting dog with no placements
and made him a champion. Bred by the late Inez Smith, “Spec” was started by Harold
and Doug Ray. Spec also was the 2009 Top Shooting Dog Setter.
Reflecting, Luke says, “I like to win. Every trial every week I am nervous about
doing well.”
Humble-natured, Luke finds it rewarding to win not for himself personally but for
his clients and their dogs. He cites George Tracy, Harold Ray, Sean Derrig, Shawn
Kinkelaar and Tommy Davis as having helped him to learn and grow.
When work keeps Tammy from attending field trials, Luke gets help scouting from
Mike Hester, Shawn Kinkelaar or his cousin, Jeanette Tracy, one of few women professional
handlers on the circuit.
“Pap taught me to always give 100 percent,” says Jeanette, the youngest daughter
of George and Mary. “As long as you give your all, you can live with whatever turns
out. “As a girl whenever I would compete with one of dad’s puppies, Pap would get
very excited. I wish he were here now.”
Like her brother Mike, Jeanette grew up helping George with the dogs. “I said I
would never do this work,” she says. “After college I worked at a boarding kennel
and at a veterinary clinic, and then I moved back home to help with the dogs.”
Her mother likens her to her father. “We call her ‘Georgette,’” Mary says, laughing.
“They are identical in the way they think. They work dogs similarly and both like
a big-running dog. Jeanette though has a gentle touch and often gets the soft dogs,
the one-man dogs.”
An athlete like her father and brother, Jeanette excelled in college sports, playing
basketball and fast-pitch softball at York College of Penn?sylvania. When she moved
home to Summerhill Kennels, she began helping start puppies.
A few years later, in 2005, Jean?ette bought a 56-acre place down the road from
Summerhill and started training dogs at her Ladywood Farm. She began with puppies
that she raised and started. Clients began bringing her their derbies, and she began
taking pregnant dams and raising litters.
Jeanette recently made the transition to one-hour stakes with the dogs she started
as pups. Great River Dominator, a 2X Classic winner owned by Phyllis Bosse and Wayne
and Gail Stover, is one of them. “Tank” had a questionable field trial career until
Jeanette started working him. Last year, the pointer male was the Pennsylvania Shooting
Dog of the Year Runner-Up Champion. Another dog Jeanette trains, Bay Country Hope,
a pointer female and 2X Classic winner owned by Keith Thomas, won the award. “It
was pretty exciting,” says Jeanette.
“What I like is that I’ve had all these dogs since they were pups,” she says. “I’ve
seen every step of progress they’ve made. I’ve seen them win championships and classics.
It’s exciting to see them develop.”
Now that she enters more one-hour stakes, Jeanette often competes with Mike, George
and Luke at events. She recently received her 200th placement. Her record includes
winning the 2007 New England Championship with Enhancement Tess, owned by Joe McHugh,
and five classics: Tank won two, “Hope” won two, and Enhancement Trey, owned by
McHugh, won one. Jeanette won the 2008 New England Futurity with Enhancement Alice
June, owned by Tom Hance, and she has qualified dogs since 2008 for the National
Open Shooting Dog Championship, no easy feat, especially considering she doesn’t
go to all the trials.
Looking to the future, Jeanette says, “It would be neat to one day win the Top Shooting
Dog Award or even the Handler of the Year Award. For now, I’m happy to win a championship
with any of my dogs. I know they have the potential to do it.”
Undoubtedly, Jeanette has the potential, too.
As Mary says, “It makes you wonder, doesn’t it, that perhaps there’s something in
the genetics that Gerald passed on his work ethic and all this knowledge to his
son and three grandchildren.” Though he never intended it, Gerald gave his family
a special gift: a love for shooting dogs. “He would be very proud today,” says Mae.
The Tradition Continues
Among the greatest honors in American Field shooting dog competitions are winning
a Purina Top Shooting Dog Award or Purina Handler of the Year Award. At the 2009
award banquet, held the first weekend in June in Pittsburgh, the winners of both
awards were grandsons of Gerald Tracy, the handler of the first Purina Top Shooting
Dog Award winner, Rocky River Buck in 1983.
Luke Eisenhart handled the 27th Top Shooting Dog Award winner, The Insider, a 5-year-old
tricolor English Setter male owned by John Fort of Camden, S.C. Bred by the late
Inez Smith, “Spec” garnered eight point-earning placements to win the award: two
championships, one runner-up, four classic placements and a second in an open shooting
dog stake.
Six-time Purina Top Shooting Dog Handler of the Year Award winner, Mike Tracy handled
14 dogs in point-earning placements to win his fourth consecutive award and “personal
best” 4,884 points, a new record for the 20-year-old award. Only Mike’s father,
George Tracy, an 11X Handler of the Year Award recipient, has won the award more
times.