Keith Mott’s ‘Champions of Yester Year’ (Part 87)

 DENNIS & JOYCE SMITH

OF WEST DRAYTON

The fantastic loft of Mr. & Mrs. Dennis Smith have won countless major prizes since being formed in 1963, including at least 40 times 1st Federation, plus 1st open London & South East Classic Club from Tours. Dennis and Joy raced only the widowhood system and their 24 cocks excelled from 90 miles through to the longest old bird race at 450 miles. Their race team were mainly Busschaerts, with an introduction of the Janssen and Van Loon families. Joy told me a lot of their good winners were off  ‘De 45’ Busschaert bloodlines.

The young Dennis Smith had pigeons at the age of eight and after a run of playing football in his teenage years he started racing, mostly with gift pigeons, in 1963. A great fancier who Dennis looked up to in the early days was Bob Atkinson of Yiewsley, who won the Young Bird National in 1951. Dennis said, Bob never kept a lot of birds and really knew how to get a bird ready for a race, and was one of the great characters of the sport. Dennis started racing in the West Drayton & Dist. H.P.C. with the Logan, Gits and Barker pigeons, with very little success in the early days. His first winning pigeon was bred by Bill Odell, a West Drayton fancier.

Dennis and Joy’s highly successful loft housed nine pairs of stock birds, 24 widowhood cocks, which were paired up in January and they bred about 40 youngsters to race each season. The main racing loft housed the widowhood cocks which were split into two teams and this very smart shed was 12ft long, with open door trapping. The Widowhood hens were kept at the end of the main loft in a wire flight. The stock birds and youngsters were housed in a second loft and were trapped in a ‘sputnik’. The stock section had a nice wire flight for the prisoners to take a bath and get fresh air. The stock team was made up of eight pairs of Busschaerts and one pair of Van Loon. The widowhood cocks were given eight training tosses up to 50 miles before the first Federation race then were flown out around the loft for one hour morning and evening once racing started. The cocks were fed on a standard widowhood mixture, with breakdown from Saturday to Tuesday morning. The cocks were shown the hen for one minute before going into the basket on marking night and got the hen for ten minutes on his return from the race.

Although the partners very rarely raced hens, they won 1st open London & South East Classic Club (1.100 birds) from Tours with their good dark chequer hen, ‘Lavender Girl’. This game hen was from the ‘Little Black’ Busschaert bloodlines and was raced unpaired when she won the Classic by 50ypm. A fantastic performance!

Dennis maintained young birds must be well schooled in their first year and his got 30 training tosses up to 50 miles before their first race. The young cocks got selected races and the hens got the programme, including the Young Bird National. The Smiths raced in the Hayes S.R.F.C., which was in the Three Borders Federation and were members of the National Flying Club and L.& S.E.C.C. Joy told me on my visit to their loft, that the most disappointing time in pigeons for them was when they were 2nd open Combine beaten on a second decimal, so near but so far away.

The loft had won the Federation over 40 times through the years and other top positions won were: 33rd open NFC Cherbourg, 17th open NFC Guernsey, 35th open NFC Nantes, 76th open NFC St. Malo, 111th open NFC Sartilly, 1st open L&SECC Tours, 10th open L&SECC Angers and 2nd Federation Bergerac (450 miles), only bird on the day in the West Drayton Club.

Dennis and Joy reckoned the loft should be dry, with good ventilation and they didn’t like the idea of deep litter. A few late breds were produced from time to time, but these were not raced, but put to stock. They said to get a good winning family of pigeons, line breeding was essential. Joy maintained to get the best out of birds they have to have a good moult and their birds had linseed added to their diet in the moulting period.

TEXT & PHOTOS BY KEITH MOTT.        

15/1/08