((( THE TRUTH ABOUT MASON'S CH HAMMER )))

[Officially Retired]

Good read. Sometimes I like the history of the dogs as much as the dogs themselves. Not to play the ends against the middle but here is my take. Jack you should call up the PATRICKS, say, "hello, this is Jack and thanks for all you did in the dogs" and hang up. If they had actually bred Hammer the way he is papered Poncho may not have ability or durability or finish. He could have even checked up right off the bat. The next dog you had in mind may not have taught you or made you see what Poncho was able to do. So regardless of whether he was bred this way or that way you started with him and bettered things starting with him. So now some hundred years later, does it really matter? For me, no. Did I enjoy the reading and the conversation? Absolutely.

Great point EWO, and I agree 100% (well, except the part of me calling up Pat to "thank him," as he's been too much of a prick for me to do that , not to mention the other fact that Darren Steele is the one who bred Ch Hammer )

But anyway, I have always said I would never have bred to Hammer, if I knew the truth at the time, and yet it was the single most important breeding I ever made ... so here's to serendipity

My thought process about this using a similar story. Young pitcher is our area that is blessed with a golden arm. Like a lot of them he has never been blessed with good coaching and worse has a father living the glory years thru his kid. He is asked to throw too much. But the father's penis lengthens with every outing. The kid's arm begins to fade as 16 year old. Just too many innings. Father and coach have major argument. Coach is an ass and does not have kids best interest at heart. Just uses him to no end. Kid has elbow issues. Coach pressures him to throw and dad wants him to throw. Kid quits baseball his senior year in high school. Does not pitch a day because the two people who are looking out for him are not. Sad story. But wait. His arm rests for an entire year. His love and passion are still there. He walks on to a D-1 school and makes their starting rotation. His future is bright.
The moral to the story is that if those two people that should have been looking out for him had not pushed him out of baseball for the wrong reasons he would have thrown his arm out and became a 'never-was' or a 'couldabeen'. But instead the shortcomings of another was a blessing in disguise. Poncho was Poncho, and Poncho had no idea who his 'pops' or his 'moms' were. So in back door way they did you a favor by making Poncho regardless of which route it took to get to Poncho. The important fact is Poncho was Poncho. Just like this kid. The key factor was he rested a worn out arm, why he rested in really amounts to nothing in the grand scheme of things.

Again, I agree. In the end, the most important thing about a dog being a producer is prepotency not "how they're bred"

Poncho's ability to produce, IMO, was more a testimony to Miss Trinx, but yet I bred Trinx's brother Truman to other "pure Patrick" dogs ... and NEVER got the same quality results as I got from breeding Trinx to Hammer ... and Poncho, Missy, and Ruby were light years better dogs than either Truman or Trinx ... so there was something unique about that combination that just happened to pan out.

All 3 dogs were excellent, and all 3 dogs were extremely prepotent, and that (more than anything else) is what really counts when making a breeding. Other than Dolly and Polly (and their magic with Yellow), and Trinx's brother Bodine (who's magic crossed with Butkus' sister), there was almost no "tight Hollingsworth dog" that could come close to the legacy that Poncho, Missy, and Ruby produced ... and, of course, my dogs have blended superbly with both cousins' offspring as well, producing multiple winners, Champions, etc. along the way

A great article. Enjoyed the read. I recently had the opportunity to talk to a dog man in his 70's who had dogs in the fifties, a two generation dog man. The phone call lasted nearly two and a half hours. I never met or talked to 95% of the people he talked about but it was history and it was interesting. So for the history aspect, great job. EWO

Thank you very much, glad you enjoyed it, and nice commentary as well

Jack

[EWO]

I enjoyed this post quite a bit. I never met B. Smith personally. We shared one phone call in the 93-94 maybe even 95 time frame. It has been a long time and it was just one phone call. I can't judge a guy on one phone call but I did take two things from the conversation. One he was very sure of himself. A non-issue there because without confidence the game would come to a screeching halt. Secondly Bull Boy Bob would go down as one of the all time great producers because he had 'others' working for him. I took that information with a grain of salt. We were just venturing into the Patrick dogs back then. I had just got out of the service and prior to that I grew up in NC. In the mid 80's it was Snooty and Redboy and later on the Garner dogs. You could step out of any front door, throw a rock and hit a Garner dog. While I was in the service I met a guy named Mike B. whose pops did dogs in the southwest. When I was in San Diego we took leave and went to a get together in Stafford or Safford AZ. I can't remember. We saw three sets of males. This was around 90-91. A couple were of the Patrick breeding. They were slick, and smart and positioned themselves to deliver but were hard to be delivered upon. So my plan was to get some of those Patrick dogs when I got back to NC down the road in 93-94. Later down that road I saw a BBB dog that was bred to a Reuben daughter, or so that is how it was told. Long way around but that is when I called Mike B. who in turn got me the B. Smith phone number. When trying something new I always start with a female and pay the stud fee to start with a litter of my own. I was trying to work a deal on a Reuben daughter or Reuben doubled up on a grand daughter. Unfortunately it never got worked out. Looking back it would have been nice to get that Reuben shot from way back then.
But like I said, things happen for a reason. I never met B. Smith personally and did not know him other than that one phone call. The years may be off by one or two either way as it was a long time ago and it was just that one phone call. As I read the posts from Jack and TFX I was looking back on my younger years. Pretty much being self analytical, sometimes a brain surgeon and sometimes a dumbass. I may have enjoyed the post for that reason alone. It was good times back then. The game had characters and personality. Most of the people in the game had been in it for a long time. The new comers came and went but not near the rate they come and go today. And after being in the game back then for so long, coupled with being a character with personality, there were a million stories to be told. From the late 70's into the early 80's I was always captured by the history and the conditioning. My first job as a 10-11 year old was walking dogs. A dollar a mile, which put me on Rockefeller status in rural NC in the late 70's.
Sorry for the rambling. It was a great post. Offered up some nice history and some anti-history (LOL). It provoked some good memories. Some 'wish-I-hadda's'. And some proof to one of the first things I remember about growing up around old dogmen. The only way to prove a dogs breeding is to win three or four or produce dogs that win, or better yet produce dogs that produce dogs. When that happens there is always someone out there that can tell you how he is really bred. In turn, if we are discussing the breeding of Hammer (Reuben or BBB) still in 2013, then those dogs most certainly threw some dogs in their day. EWO

[TFX]

I was trying to work a deal on a Reuben daughter or Reuben doubled up on a grand daughter.

If you were trying to get a REUBEN daughter in 95 you were going to be SOL, because we had the very last one (MOLLY) and she died in 92 or 93. A double grandaughter was still a possibility, but not that probable.

[EWO]

I saw the BBB/Reuben bred male in like 91 or 92 while stationed in southern California. I didn't make the call til at least late 93 when I was discharged. I started back in dogs late 93. I made the call because it was a lot of the Chinaman stuff around the NC area, as well as the Snooty and Miss Pool Hall Red. The Reuben stuff would have been a nice add to these dogs. Distance was an issue. But like I said it was a long time ago. What was living and not living by 95 is way beyond me. I liked the male I saw and was told it was the Reuben blood that was making him. I was a young guy who was 3000 miles from home and invited to a show. I could not name anyone there other than the Mike B., the guy I was in the service with. I was going off what I was told by people I did not know. Turns out the Reuben daughter/granddaughter was nothing more than an inquiry. It would have been around 94 or so, maybe as late as 95 but that is like a hundred years ago when trying to remember when a phone call was made when nothing ever developed from the call. Knowing I had that one conversation with Bobby S. way back when is what made the original post so interesting. The facts and how things turned out doesn't/didn't much matter as it was the history of the post that made it a worthwhile read for me. EWO

[drz]

Great read! The thing I've noticed about the truth and don't get me wrong I understand why you've classified this as a "theory" but I've never doubted it to be the truth, anyway as I was saying the thing about the truth is that once you hit it every other thing starts falling into place. Too many coincidences get cleared up once you add Rueben to the equation. Now you take a look at Rueben being heavy on Ironhead (who was believed by many including Davis to be the actual sire of Boomerang) and people will understand how the QOH blood always clicked so well with Boomerang blood. Just my two cents anyway.

[Officially Retired]

I agree with you 100%.

I can't call my conclusion "a fact" ... but what I can do is list the facts and let people understand why my "opinion" is what it is

Jack

PS: Nice to see you back.

[drz]

I agree with you 100%.

I can't call my conclusion "a fact" ... but what I can do is list the facts and let people understand why my "opinion" is what it is

Jack

PS: Nice to see you back.

Appreciate the welcome. Seems you're running a pretty classy ship over here. I'll tell you something. You had it so that part of this article could be read without a subscription. I probably read that excerpt a half dozen times. I was like Jack you friggin tease I think you got me. Then I noticed some knowledgable dogmen had all but gone missing from the other site and here I am. Just to let you know that "sample" concept works at least it worked on me.

[Officially Retired]

Appreciate the welcome. Seems you're running a pretty classy ship over here. I'll tell you something. You had it so that part of this article could be read without a subscription. I probably read that excerpt a half dozen times. I was like Jack you friggin tease I think you got me. Then I noticed some knowledgable dogmen had all but gone missing from the other site and here I am. Just to let you know that "sample" concept works at least it worked on me.

LMAO, yep, that was intentional ... because, sooner or later, curiosity gets the best of us all

Nice to have you back

Jack

PS: Hope the full article didn't disappoint

[drz]

Full article was very good. Were you also doing one on Buck? I spoke to one of the guys who I believe had Buck for his first show if not multiple shows. He says he believes the original papers were correct. I rarely if ever see a Buck down bred the way I'd like so it was never something I researched despite my curiosity. Anyway this thread is about Ch. Hammer and it was a great read.

[Officially Retired]

My full opinion on Buck is in my Hollingsworth Dogs book, but I suppose I could re-post it here in another thread. I also have a tape recording of Pat telling of Buck's real pedigree and why he made the switch