JOHN & ANNE RAKE of CALDICOT

National Winning Consistency

By Gareth Watkins

John and Anne Rake have over the past 10 years amassed an enviable series of top class National performances, not only with the Welsh South Road NFC, but also with the Central Southern CFC and the ultra competitive NFC. The 1998 season saw the first of the Rake’s National wins with the WSRNFC in a 300 mile race from La Ferte Bernard. The second of their National wins came in 2005 from Pau, 579 miles when they clocked their good dark chequer cock “ Steepholme Boy” to achieve one of their greatest ambitions after coming so very close on so many previous occasions from Pau.

John and Anne have been in the sport for more than 40 years and the present loft is an extremely impressive self built structure situated in the garden at the rear of their equally impressive self built home. The loft measures 45 ft x 12 ft and has 5 sections; three sections for the old bird team of 22 pairs which are fitted out with widowhood style nest boxes, and two sections for the 40/50 strong team of youngsters. Half the young bird team are raced on the darkness system, with the other half raced naturally. A small team of stock birds are also housed and these are made up mostly of retired racers plus a few choice introductions. As you can see there is certainly no overcrowding here. All loft interior walls and nest boxes are painted with white emulsion to produce a light and pleasant atmosphere.

Yearlings are mated at the beginning of February, followed on the 14 th of the month by the 2, 3 and 4 year olds. Any treatments for worms, cocci and canker are carried out prior to mating and the team are regularly monitored throughout the season to ensure they do not carry any parasites. If all is well then they are not treated a second time. When racing, the team are exercised twice daily and John is happy if they go with a swing for 20 minutes on each occasion. Training is carried out before racing and, because of the persistent hawk problem, only intermittently thereafter. The old birds are usually raced on the natural system but in 2006 they were raced ona semi roundabout system. Most birds are raced weekly during the inland programme and are then selected for their specific target races. In the build up to these target races the candidates might not see the inside of a race basket for three weeks or more. John likes to get an 8 – 10 hour fly into his Pau pigeons beforehand and is not averse to selecting a promising race candidate on the day of basketting if something catches his eye. So although he likes to map out the season’s programme for specific pigeons he has an adaptable approach to team selection and “strikes while the iron is hot” on some occasions.

The racers are hand fed a good widowhood type mixture twice per day and the average daily intake per bird is seen to be approximately one and a half ounces per day. At certain times of the year i.e. when breeding the birds get a mixture richer in protein to aide the growth of the squeakers.

The young bird team is given an extensive training programme before racing begins and afterwards are taken along slowly with some going across the channel in their first season whilst others are kept inland.

Since John and Anne favour National long distance type racing it’s not surprising that the bloodlines housed reflect this preference. The base bloodlines of the loft are Deweerdts which originate from Andy Gregson of Preston. These have been “doing the business” for the Rakes and many others for years. Also included in the mix are some Vermotes via Bob Whittock, Van Bruaenes via Graham Moss and more recently some Van Wanroys. The Deweerdts in particular are a very impressive bunch, mostly dark chequers, medium sized with the cocks showing bold intelligent heads. The winner of 2nd National Pau [beaten into the r/u spot by a decimal point over 579 mls] on the other hand was a small dark chequer hen bred by Graham Moss from his A.H. Bennett Van Bruaenes. This hen has also proved to be a goldmine at stock as quite a few winners contain her genes, one such descendent being the 2005 Pau National winner which is a grandson. The Pau National winner known as “Steepholme Boy”, proved to be a lovely long cast dark chequer and was bred by the partnership of Martin Greetham and Dee Schofield. The Rakes let the partners have a daughter of the 2nd Open Pau hen and she was mated to a cock containing all the best of Mick Spencer’s bloodlines. A pair of babies was sent back down to Wales and one of these proved to be Steepholme Boy.

The 1998 La Ferte Bernard National winner was a lovely three bar blue hen containing all the very best of the Andre Vermote bloodlines via Bob Whittock. The star of the loft in 2006 was a beautiful medium sized chequer hen of Deweerdt x Van Bruaene x Van Wanroy bloodlines which won 11th Open British Barcelona Club Messac and 14 days later was one of only 8 birds clocked on the day into Wales from Bergerac after 15 ¾ hours on the wing to win 8th Open Welsh  National and 22nd Open CSCFC. The same hen in 2005 won 11th Open National Cholet and 6th Open National Bergerac. In addition to the many National prizes won outright, the Rakes have also taken the Old Bird Averages in the Welsh South Road National in both 2005 and 2006.  Indeed this success goes back to 1997 when John and Anne won the trophy for best averages in all six WSRNFC races. Consistency is at National level is the yardstick by which John and Anne base their success and as you can see from the aforementioned results, it is one which they achieve with relentless monotony.