
Tracy Hayes
North Carolina
Background
Tracy Hayes has lived a lifetime with gun dogs. His first two dogs were a gift from a family friend he received when he was 9 years old. Coming from a birddog family, his youth was filled with pointing dogs, quail, grouse and pointing dog field trials. In his early twenties, after graduating from Virginia Tech, he acquired his first lab and it’s been a life-long affair.
For nearly twenty years, agriculture was his vocation but retrievers were his passion. In 1990, he saw a sign that said NAHRA hunt tests. He stopped and watched Charlie Jurney, Allen Pleasants and a few other hunt test trainers and his life was never the same. He co-founded Big Elkin Creek Waterfowl and Retrievers in 1993. Over the next several years, with the help of Charlie Jurney, he learned the art and skill of training retrievers. In the late nineties, he started training professionally and founded Quail Hill Farm Kennels—the rest is history.
At Quail Hill Farm Kennels, training hunting retrievers for the true hunter is paramount. With several acres to train on they almost never have to leave the property to give their gun dogs excellent training opportunities. They train almost exclusively for working gun dogs and HRC hunt tests with the top dogs participating in every HRC Grand. They take pride in training owners to become very proficient handlers for their retrievers.
Other Senior Prostaff

Ed Bullard
Ed has a long history of breeding, training, and competing with his gundogs. He has been a keen outdoorsman all his life. His focus is on training gundogs and breeding Brittanys.

Brice Morris
Brice Morris is an avid upland game bird hunter and trainer of gun dogs known for high scores in walking field trials due to a well-planned and positive training programme. Brice provides training and guiding services for a premier hunting lodge in the upper Midwest and mentors youth as well as...

Jon-Michael Rull
A dream was born one day in 2006 when Jon-Michael started watching a TV programme that featured retrievers picking up bumpers from an incredible distance and taking hand signals to get to a desired location. From there, Jon-Michael decided he wanted to get a dog that could do just that!...
