National Flying Club Results & Information Database

NFC St Nazaire… extra bits

by Paul O'Leary

The Press Officer always does a good job rounding up news on all the Section winners in NFC races before the Tuesday print deadline … because of the tight deadline it’s rare for a pigeon not winning its Section get any coverage in the week following the race or indeed ever.

The NFC Results and Information Database is a very powerful analysis tool and I can instantly retrieve the past performances of each and every pigeon listed in the provisional result. As always I’m looking for pigeons repeating excellent performances.

With the first race, this year from St Nazaire, always being the shortest race we find a higher preponderance of yearlings than in any other race so quite often I can’t find any prior performances. However a handful of older pigeons immediately leap into the spotlight …

In provisional 13th Open 4th Section B is a 2yo for Terry and Justin Bernard (Portsmouth) which previously won 143rd Open 6th Section B Saintes 2004.

In provisional 17th Open 11th Section E is a 2yo pigeon flown by Gary Inkley (Uxbridge) which last year achieved 38th Open 3rd Section E from Saintes 2004. Two high-class positions achieved by this pigeon. Gary was the winner of last year’s Langstone Gold Cup so clearly is a loft on a roll.

Just behind Gary in Section E is J Robbie (Maidenhead) with a pigeon winning provisional 18th Open 12th Section E with a 4yo pigeon which previously won 57th Open 32nd Section E from Nantes 2003.

In provisional 20th Open 5th Section B is a truly wonderful pigeon of Dave Johnson (Southampton) which previously won 118th Open 44th Section B Nantes 2002 and 192nd Open 16th Section B Saintes 2003 … but which also won 1st Open Bergerac 2004 with the Central Southern Classic Flying Club. I know the same pigeon also won the Sholing Open last year. I’ll be very surprised if this pigeon wasn’t very well pooled and congratulations to David on keeping this pigeon is such fine condition every year.

In provisional 25th Open 8th Section B is a 2yo flying for Bartlett & Jones (Southampton) which previously won 181st Open 12th Section B Nantes 2004. The same pigeon recently won 8th Open St Nazaire with the British Barcelona Club and clearly is a top pigeon. This partnership previously won the Nantes race in 2000. Sadly, Fred Bartlett passed away earlier this year but the name flies on …Time restricts what I can do … apologies to anyone who feels overlooked by this brief analysis which only looked at the top 40 pigeons in the provisional result. Once the full result is in we can pore over it again. If any of the above fanciers have pictures of these pigeons that they wish to loan me for a short period I would greatly appreciate it and we can perhaps include these in a future article.