Keith Mott writes...

PAUL RENNISON

OF WORTHING  

Paul Rennison is a great worker for the sport of pigeon racing and the 2003 season saw him rewarded when he won,1st Section A in the NFC Nantes National race. I must say, it's always great to see a worker win and no one deserves a bit of success more than Paul! He runs an eight bedroom hotel on the south coast at Worthing with his wife, Janet, and says she is a great help with the pigeons, doing most of the training.

He's had pigeons most of his life and started racing in 1973 when he got married and purchased a suitable property to erect a loft. His first stock were obtained from the Frank Hall London Auctions and good local Horsham fanciers including Charlie Woods, John Cookson and Jeff Cockerall. A. R. Hill pigeons came from E. Ward through the London Auctions, and they are the birds he races today, with additions over the years from his good friend, Keith Wilkins of Lewes. Paul has always liked the longer races, six hours plus, and tells me his family of pigeons have always held their own in these type of races. His biggest thrill was clocking in on the day from Pau (550 miles) and he says that winning the London & South East Classic Club Breeder/Buyer in the 2002 season was very nice. Pau remembers that when he started up in the sport, the late Charlie Woods had some outstanding pigeons and put up some amazing performances with his Champion ‘Pride of Sussex'. In the early 1970s Jim Sweetescot introduces Paul to Jed Jackson of Worthing who, at that time, had access to his own telephone switchboard and spent many hours on line talking pigeons with Paul. When Jed won the Pau Grand National the Rennison family shared his table at the prize presentation and Paul says it was an unforgettable evening.

The Rennison loft has always been raced on the natural system and Paul says his A. R. Hill / Kirkpatrick pigeons have won many major prizes in National and Classic races through the years, including 25th Open NFC Pau, clocking on the day of liberation. Paul pairs his race team up in late May and flies a bit of roundabout early in the season to get the birds fit. He feeds beans all the year round and works the birds very hard in the early part of the season. They aren't broken down at any time but are fed light with pellets and a small grain mixture when they return from a race.

The Rennisons' present 33ft loft was erected in 1986 and has a front corridor running the full length of the structure and 30 natural nest boxes. Paul likes deep litter on the loft floors and told me that his loft is very well ventilated, with a pantiled roof and open vent bonnets. The loft has two young bird sections which house about 65 babies each year and these are also fed on beans and raced on the natural system to the perch. The youngsters are never put on darkness.

One of the sport's workers, Paul is always ready to help out in any way he can. He has been Chairman of the Sussex South Road Federation for 17 years and is also the Chairman of the Brighton & Worthing 5- Bird Club, which has a very strong membership of 63 fanciers. He tells new starters in the sport to obtain some latebreds from a good local fancier to form the basis of their family and let the basket sort out the quality birds. He believes in inbreeding and line breeding to produce pigeons for stock and likes crosses for the race team. Well done to Paul and Janet on their wonderful performance in the Nantes National!

ROGER 'DAPPER' OWERS

OF PORTLAND

Our second featured loft in this week’s ‘ON THE ROAD’, is Roger Owers and he is another 2003 NFC Section winner recording 1st Section C, 6th Open NFC Dax International. Roger told me that he has been a supporter of that race, since day one to do so well has given him a brilliant feeling as he planned his whole season around it. His Dax section winner was his good 2 year old blue cock, '45713' and the International was his fifth Channel race of the season. Previously he'd recorded 392nd Open CSCFC Saintes. His sire, the blue cock ‘16113', was bred by the late Eric Cannon of Wormley from his ten times Pau cock, ‘Culmer Lad’, who scored in ten NFC races. Culmer Lad was a brilliant breeder and a son of Eric's first NFC Pau Merit Award winner, Culmer Lady. The dam of '54713' was a blue chequer hen of Roger's own breeding and has proved a brilliant cross with the Eric Cannon family.

Roger's present house in Portland, Dorset, is his third address in three years as he is a builder and renovates houses, which he says is not ideal for the sport of pigeon racing. However, he now has 2 years old and his broken old stock are performing well. He was born in Dorchester and comes from a very large family and first became interested in pigeons as a lad. In those days he worked on a farm at weekends for pocket money and would watch the strays in the barn, He had his first birds when he lived at Victoria Park and kept them in a 6ft x 4ft garden shed with home-made bob traps. His first stock birds were a pair of Barkers gifted from an old local fancier, Charlie Budd, but at this time he only kept them as a hobby as he was very keen on snooker and pool.

At the age of 18 he married Gillian and set up home in Bradford Peverell next door to a very good pigeon fancier named Colin Foster. Roger soon restarted his pigeons and joined the Dorchester &District Pc. His first pigeons were Dordin crosses which were successful up to the middle distance and within a few years he had some good consistent results in the Club and Federation although finding the longer races very hard. After about two years he purchased a new 24ft x 6ft Kidby loft and flew the natural system, which he does to this day with the occasional variations of teasing methods.Looking back at his early mistakes, Roger says the main things he regrets is having birds from so many different fanciers, all meaning well and him keen to try any. His reason for saying this is that when you do stumble on a pigeon showing above average results, you tend to find it's a sport pigeon and the chances of it reproducing are very small. However, it takes you down that long road of two or three seasons to find this out. Roger is a firm believer that as in horse racing, there are horses for courses and good bloodlines stand the test of time.

With regards to loft design, he maintains that he feels it's nice to work in a clean environment He keeps both his lofts on deep litter and scrapes all the perches twice a day. He races 12 pairs on the natural system and breeds about 24 youngsters to race every season. The young birds are kept totally natural and are trained very hard then raced up to and overseas. He is not a fan of the darkness system but says this could be ignorance on his part and a lot of good fanciers will soon tell him they do well on the system. He keeps only three pairs of stock birds and over the last 12 years has introduced only two new families in to his loft, one being from Mr & Mrs Eric Cannon. The reason for that, he says, he need not explain, as Eric's wonderful record in the NFC over many years speaks for itself. The other is from Bob McDonald of Fraserburgh in Scotland. Roger told me the new introductions have been well tried with the two cock birds both crossed with his own hen line, down from Tony Hustler's Palamos pigeon, '06029'.

Roger says Gillian is a 'model wife', who has no interest in the pigeons but has never given him any grief over them and helps if needed. He's been the Chairman of the Dorchester Club for many years and says he really enjoys the office. He told me that he enjoys any pigeon race but because of his complete change-around from middle to long distance about ten years ago, he finds that his main goals are later in the season, so his birds are not ready until the middle part of the season' . He doesn't subscribe to the view that one family will win from 50 miles through to 500 miles and says, 'I always competed in and considered that an important test for my old and young birds was the Dorchester Single Bird Guernsey Open and I don't think I have ever missed one of these races in the last 25 years, having won the event in 1981 and recorded best bird in Dorset or clock station many times'.

The Owers loft has recorded many premier positions through the years including Nantes Centenary race 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th Club (won by three hours); 1st Federation, 1st Open Combine; 10th SW Section, 31st Open (65,000 birds). The second birds on the clock from the Nantes Centenary race, recording 372nd Open, was Roger's good hen, '10132' and she went on to with 4th Open NFC Pau on the day and her daughter was clocked next morning to win 108th Open. Other positions won by '10132' were 35th Open Bergerac, 182nd Open CSCFC Nantes, 2nd Club, 12th Federation Bordeaux as a yearling, 117th Open CSCFC Pau and bred many premier racers including, 1stWeydor Guernsey and 1st Club Saintes. Another outstanding racer for this Dorset loft was '02744', who recorded 1st Club, 1st Open Dorset Federation (889 birds), 142nd Open Rennes, 3rd Club Saintes and 2nd Club Nantes - a brilliant family of Channel racers! Congratulations to Roger and Gillian on their wonderful performance from the Dax International.