National Flying Club Results & Information Database

Report 2005/04

Team Performances from the Longest Old Bird Race

Finding exceptional pigeons and team performances from a race should be easy but very often the headline reports miss them because, rightly or wrongly, they focus almost exclusively on 1st Open winners and then the Section winners.

One truly exceptional team performance came out of the 2004 Grand National race from Pau. Before I trumpet the statistics it’s worth pointing out that this member’s previous best performance from the NFC since 1997 was 33rd Open San Sebastian in 2001. Now, that’s no mean effort in itself but this previous best was blown completely out of the water by the team sent to Pau last year.

A team of three was sent to Pau and the first was clocked at 21:16:47 on the day of liberation. I can only imagine the elation felt after this first pigeon dropped but only 8 minutes the second one dropped and was clocked at 21:24:45. Timing a day pigeon from Pau is GOLD standard … timing two from three is something else. Me? I would have got completely wasted up the club that evening and thoughts of even seeing the third pigeon the next day would have been far from my mind! But would you believe it this member was up at the crack of dawn the following day to be rewarded with the return of their third pigeon which was clocked at 05:07:21. These pigeons ultimately won 14th 17th and 32nd Open and 2nd 4th and 5th Section G.

For those of you now wondering who I’m talking about I am referring to the S & V Miles partnership from Bath. This team performance should really have received its plaudits last year but doubtless because 1st Open (Lloyd & Kelly) 1st Section (L & P Emery) and 2-bird average (Biss & Waite) prizes were not won this performance was not picked up by the reporting radar.

However to put this performance into proper context against the performance of all other fanciers regardless of the number sent to Pau they were the 14th member out of 773 to time their first pigeon but they were the 1st to time a second pigeon and also the 1st to time a third. Competing against some fantastic National fanciers, some of who sent far bigger teams, these are remarkable statistics. Yes, there were 13 individual pigeons which put in better performances on the day but I think we’ll have to wait a very long time for a better team performance from the Grand National race than this?

Now having found a 100% team return from the longest old bird race in 2004 I thought I would it only fair to scratch away and delve for other fanciers achieving 100% timings from the longest old bird race where a team of 3 or more pigeons was entered. Unsurprisingly, given the flying distances involved the list is quite short but as you can see there are fanciers flying well over 600 miles in this list. Remarkably the stats reveal that someone has achieved this performance twice … so well done to Mr & Mrs B Freeman!

Not wishing to alienate those of you who have sent 2 and clocked two to the longest old bird race I’ve drawn up this additional table showing such fanciers where their first pigeon appeared in the top 200 of the Open result (this keeps the list to manageable proportions)

Paul O’Leary O014A

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