London & South East Classic winners - Part 6

D & B JENKYN

OF CHERTSEY

Dean won the London & South-East Classic Club from the young bird Guernsey race in 2000; he is one of the 'nice guys' of pigeon racing and I always enjoy a chat with him. He is an outspoken lad and has a good, honest, fun approach to racing his pigeons. His lofts are sited on farmland in Chertsey and, being a very busy plumber, he loves the quiet of the isolated lofts at weekends during the summer months. He says having the lofts out in the fields is great in the summer, but not very nice in winter, when he has to carry freezing water in the back of his van. He says he has been trying to win the Classic for several years and to win the Guernsey race is a dream come true. He normally breeds 100 youngsters each year but, because of heavy work commitments, gave most of them away last season, keeping only 12 to race. The young birds are not normally trained past Hook on the M3 motorway, which is about 25 miles to the Chertsey loft, but Dean had been working in Winchester (50 miles) so his youngsters had six tosses from there just prior to the Guernsey Classic race. He sent five young birds to Guernsey for their first race and got five back. The Jenkyn youngsters are raced to the perch on the darkness system and Dean says his Guernsey team was in perfect feather condition for the race. The winning pigeon was a handsome Van Loon blue chequer cock which originates from stock obtained from Terry Hudson of Bracknell, in Berkshire.

Dean is from a pigeon racing family, flying for many years with his late brother, Bernard, and has been in the sport for over 20 years. His 85 year old father is an outstanding fancier, racing a few Staf Van Reet pigeons. He had won several 1sts in the 2000 season, including 2nd Club, 2nd Federation Bergerac. Dean and Bernard   won the Combine from Nantes doing 944ypm, with a good cock which had previously won the Federation inland. Dean races the Van Reet and Van Loon pigeons on the widowhood system and is mostly interested in inland racing. The birds are paired up in mid-January and the cocks are put on the system after rearing a pair of youngsters and sitting eight days on their second round of eggs. The cocks are never broken down and are exercised morning and evening around the loft. The birds are not let out of the loft in the winter months. The loft set-up is 70ft long, with open door and sputnik trapping and the stock team has a nice wire flight to take a bath in. Whilst at Dean's loft, he showed me a few of his best birds, including his famous Van Loon blue chequer cock, 'Off The Shovel', which has had a wonderful racing career, winning many 1sts, including three times 1st Open Federation. Dean says this is a once-in-a-lifetime pigeon - never wasting a second on his return from a race - which has bred 1st Federation winners.

THE LATE, FRED JOHNSON

OF BRIGHTON

Another recent winner of the London & South-East Classic Club from the young bird Guernsey was Fred Johnson, who won with a young bird record entry of 2,143 birds. Fred said, he had been in pigeons for as long as he can remember and also had two uncles who were fanciers, which meant that he spent a lot of his childhood at their lofts watching their birds. Fred won his first race from Le Mans but maintains that he had won many 1sts in club racing through the years, although his Guernsey Classic win is his best performance to date. He likes to race weekly in his club, the Brighton & District, but said he would have liked to get into long-distance racing. For over 20 years he had been the hard-working Secretary of the local club, which raced south road through to Bergerac.

Fred's Classic winner is a Van Winckel/Janssen blue hen and she was a real class act, having previously won a 1st and 2nd Club as young bird inland racing. Fred named her 'Annie' after his late mother and she was sent to Guernsey calling to nest with an odd old cock bird which was housed in the young bird section. The main families raced were Smits-Van Winckel and Janssen and Fred said they are both good families up to 8 or 9 hours on the wing. He raced the widowhood system, starting the season with 20 cocks, and feeds a barley breakdown from Saturday until Tuesday. The cocks were not trained very much, mostly from the west, as the loft was on the south coast, but race right through to Bergerac (400 miles).

Fred's main racing loft was 18ft with three sections, sputnik traps and used a straw litter on the floors. His wonderful old loft was very close to the sea front and looked a blaze of colour on my visit, with nice plant boxes all round it. He reared 34 youngsters for racing each year and raced his own version of the darkness system, with outstanding results. The young birds were not trained very much, but were kept match fit with good exercise around the loft. I must say it was nice to see Fred Johnson, one of the sport's workers, at the top of the Classic result sheet.

TEXT & PHOTOS BY KEITH MOTT.