“Derbies” are not strictly the purview of the horse world. In field trials for sporting breeds, “stakes” are a category in which dogs can compete based on their eligibility, and a “derby” is one such stake. While there “puppy stakes,” the other derby is open to all retrievers who are at least six months old, but not yet two years old on the first day of the trial. The dogs competing in this stake have to locate and point a game bird to fulfill the requirements of this category. We defer to the people who actually compete in field trails, but our reading suggests that derby stakes are similar to the Junior Hunter level in AKC hunting tests, but where field trial derbies differ from Junior Hunter level is that hunting test rules require that the dog point to at least half the birds s/he encounters. Another difference is dogs of any age can test at the Junior Hunter level, but in derby states, dogs an “age out.”
“In the Heather” by Steven Nesbitt