GAINING CONSISTENT SUCCESS AT 748 MILES - KEEP IT SIMPLE
A loft profile on Dave Impett of Blackpool
by Gareth Watkins
Dave Impett has been a fancier for close on 50 years, having started in the sport at his father’s side. Following on from this initial introduction Dave completed his pigeon apprenticeship under the guidance of one of the North West’s greatest exponents of long distance pigeon racing – none other than the great Roy Mundy, who bred and raced numerous top-class long distance performers including the great “Rossall King”. With this background it is little wonder that Dave’s ultimate goal in pigeon racing was to be successful at the extreme distance and in this case this meant success at Pau or Tarbes at 748 miles.
Dave, pictued with fellow NFC Grand National Section L winner Rough Gough (r).
When you set your stall out to compete at this sort of distance you must be prepared to play the waiting game and also be ready to suffer some bad knocks, as this sort of racing is not for the faint hearted!! However, in Dave’s case success has been achieved almost immediately. This is down to a combination of Dave’s previous experience in the field of long distance pigeon racing and his meticulous research in sourcing his foundation stock.
A top stock cock
The background to Dave’s pigeon apprenticeship has been outlined in the previous paragraphs, so what is the source of today’s long distance pathfinders? Before setting out on his present course in long distance racing Dave studied the Barcelona International results for the previous ten years. One loft stood out as gaining the most consistent results in the whole of Europe and that was the Jan Aarden-based family of the Brugemann Brothers of Assendelft in the far north west of Holland. Another important deciding factor in Dave’s choice was the fact that the brothers' pigeons flew almost exactly the same distance from Barcelona to Assendelft as Dave’s birds would have to fly from Pau to Blackpool – close on 750 miles. Arrangements for a visit were made and Dave was soon on his way to the Netherlands to view the pigeons, and just as importantly, to assess the Brugemanns. Needless to say he was not to be disappointed on either account and immediately made his first purchases.
These initial purchases, made around the turn of the millennium, started breeding “the goods” from the off with the result that Dave has returned to the brothers each year to strengthen his base bloodlines, concentrating on the lines of “Orhan” and “Myra”, two top performers from Barcelona for the Brugemanns. The amazing thing about these Brugemann pigeons is the fact that all the brothers' top long distance performers were sold in the mid 1990s and the brothers carried on with latebreds reared from the top birds before they were sold. Two of these latebreds made an immediate impact on the Barcelona International result as two year olds when they appeared in the top 50 of the International result with more than 20,000 pigeons competing. So, as you can see, these Brugemann pigeons start winning at the distance at the first time of asking.
This characteristic has been repeated in the Impett loft in Blackpool – witness the performance of “Katie’s Star” winning 1st Sect L 12thOpen NFC Tarbes 748 miles, as a 3year old latebred. This game hen was not raced as a young bird, received a couple of races as a yearling and flew Saintes 570 miles on the winning day as a two year old. As a three year old she was given a couple of preparatory races culminating in a trip to St Nazaire with the NFC before being set up for Tarbes sitting 12 day eggs. “Katie’s” haul of trophies in this race included The Roy Mundy Memorial Trophy; H.J.Langdon Trophy; Burton Trophy; Allwood Baird Trophy; J.O.Shone Trophy and The Lancashire Rose Trophy.
Christine's Star
Another fine example of this early maturity is the superb “North Star”, a beautiful blue pied hen that flew the young bird National on the day as a baby at 400 miles to win 168th Open with more than 8,000 birds competing. As Dave does not practice the darkness system the hen was sent with only half a tail. Where would she have finished in the result if she had been prepared on the darkness system? This terrific performance enabled Dave to win the Section L Averages Trophy and The Roy Gough Trophy for outstanding individual performance in all races in section L with the mighty National Flying Club in the 2005 season. In addition to these NFC awards, two R.P.R.A. awards were also won in 2005 by this teak tough team of long distance pathfinders.
North Star
Despite the disruption to the Impett long distance development programme caused by the foot and mouth and Avian Flu’ outbreaks, Dave has quickly established a terrific team of long distance performers. The team that is prepared for Pau/Tarbes rarely amounts to more than 5 or 6. In 2007 just 5 were sent and 4 returned in race time with “Christine’s Star” finishing at 5th sect, 13th Open NFC and “Lee’s Star” close behind at 8th sect, 19th Open NFC. This on a day when most of the leading birds were clocked on the east side of the country due to the prevailing westerly wind, and yet here’s Dave Impett clocking two in the first twenty at 748 miles way up in the north west of Lancashire!!
Lee's Star
What are these long distance battlers like you may well ask? The family are, on the whole, small to medium sized with superb feather quality. The exceptions to this norm are in fact some of the loft’s best long distance performers such as “North Star” mentioned earlier; “Lee’s Star” and “Christine’s Star”, which are all above medium sized with a fair bit of keel showing However, the mother of the loft, the aptly named “Goldmine Hen”, is a petite little dark chequer that is responsible through her children and grand children for most of the loft's best performers. “Katie’s Star”, also mentioned earlier, is just on medium sized and handled beautifully. Most of the inmates were dark chequers or white flights with some smokey chequers and blues. They gave the impression that they would need very little road work to get them in top racing condition and Dave stated that they exercise with relish and when on song, are difficult to get down such is their enthusiasm for work.
The system employed at the Impett loft is based on sound common sense and adherence to basic simple principles of stockmanship. Dave’s mantra is “keep it simple”, if the birds are of the right quality then success will follow. If the birds are not up to it, then no amount of potions and good corn will make them win. Thus the Impett - Brugemanns receive no tonics, vitamins or treatments whatsoever, just clean water and a good, sound young bird mixture to which Dave adds maize and fat bearing grains when required. All birds have access to large blocks of cow lick which are left outside the lofts or in the stock birds' aviaries. The old birds enjoy an open loft as much as possible and when racing are exercised once per day for up to 1½ hours at a time. In the build up to a specific race the team might receive a couple of tosses at 20-30 miles just to put the finishing touches to their preparation.
The Brugemann Brothers rarely visit their lofts before early evening and this is when their birds have their only daily liberty, being forced to fly for up to 90 minutes on each occasion.
Stock birds are mated in mid February with the race team a month later in Mid March. The old birds are allowed to complete a natural nesting cycle whenever possible and race returns allow. A team of 50 or so youngsters are reared annually from the 16 pairs of stock birds and the best of the 36 pairs of racers. The young birds are raced totally naturally and if Dave can get 3 or 4 races into them in their first season then he is happy to let them grow on without the weekly pressure and stress of young bird racing.
The stock team are housed in two lofts with attached aviaries, whilst the old bird racers enjoy the luxury afforded by a roomy three sectioned loft fitted out with “up and over” German style nest boxes. All lofts are cleaned daily throughout the year and as one would expect, the ventilation and internal environment of all three lofts was first class. This attention to loft hygiene is at variance to the methods employed by the brothers in Holland as their birds are encouraged to develop natural immunity through the use of dry droppings deep litter.
Fanciers who do not compete with the NFC may not yet have heard of Dave Impett as he does not court publicity nor seek commercial returns by advertising his pigeons for sale. Nevertheless, after visiting the Impett set up and handling the superb team of pigeons I must agree with a number of other National winning fanciers who visited these lofts before me - “these birds are the goods”. I for one have never seen better and very few as good. It won’t be very long, I feel, before the name of Dave Impett of Blackpool is on everyone’s lips when they talk of top class long distance performers.
Like minded long distance enthusiasts who would like to contact Dave can phone him on 01253 / 821529. or email DAVIDIMPETT@TALKTALK.NET
Many thanks Dave for allowing me to visit and handle some of your outstanding team of long distance racers. Long may your success continue.
