Keith Mott writes about winning fanciers past & present

The Champion of Yesteryear (Part 60)

 Ralph Jepson – ‘racing for fun’. 

Ralph Jepson is a light-hearted man who is only in pigeon for pure fun, saying many fanciers take the sport far too seriously and lose the enjoyment and fun side of it. For fun or not, Ralph has been a great racer since starting up 40 years ago. winning countless top honours in Federatio, M.C.C. and N.R.C.C. races. When I visited Ralph's Midlands home. he was hobbling around having just broken his ankle, but he has always got a smile on his face.

Ralph's main racing loft housed 34 pairs of old bird racers and were trapped through open doors. He races cocks and hens on the widowhood system and said he used to race ten hens on natural but finds it much better racing them on widowhood. His lofts had all got half perspex fronts, but were all well ventilated. His second loft had a corn store and this housed his 60 youngsters in two sections. The stock loft was brick, with a wire flight and this housed 12 pairs of breeders. One of his top stock hens was his ace racer 'Singer', and this game chequer pied hen won many major prizes including 4th. Section 15th. Open Fraserburgh M.C.C., 5th. Section, 5th. Open Thurso M.C.C. and 1st. Section. 5th. Open Thurso N.R.C.C., always losing between five and twenty minutes on the trap.

Ralph used to be a miner, but finished through injury and races all north road. The main team are Wildemeersch which excel from 50 to 500 miles and new introductions at that time were of the Van Loon stain. Ralph had been premier prize winner in the local club for many years and enjoyed racing from any distance. He said his biggest thrill in his time in the sport was when he, won the first four positions from Thurso 500 miles in two clubs then the following

week taking the first four posi­tions from Fraserburgh in two clubs. The racers were fed on Super Widowhood mixture and depura­tive by Versele Laga and the breeders on a farm mixture of bean, peas and breeding pellets. The old birds were trained three times a week up to 20 miles and the youngsters got 25 mile tosses four or five times a week.

TEXT & PHOTOS BY KEITH MOTT. 

20/4/07