Keith Mott writes about winning fanciers past & present

KEITH & SUE ARNOLD OF LEAMINGTON SPA

The first week of April 2009 saw us drive the 100 miles up the M40 motorway to Warwickshire, to visit the Sprint Champion loft of Keith and Sue Arnold and must say they own one of the best lofts of sprint pigeons I’ve ever seen! Keith Arnold has probably the best loft of sprinting Staf Van Reets in Europe today, winning in 2008: 1st Federation ten times in twelve old bird races, also winning the Federation twice with the same bird in the only two young bird races competed in and 1st & 2nd  Federation Gold Ring. Keith has won the RPRA West Midland Region Sprint Award three years on the trot and was 1st RPRA UK Sprint Champion in 2006 / 2007 and 2nd RPRA UK Sprint Champion in 2008. A brilliant fancier with fantastic pigeons!

Keith is in the accountancy profession and I must say, you need to be an accountant to count all the 1st Federation prizes he has won in recent seasons! Keith who lives in Whitnash, near Leamington Spa enjoyed yet another wonderful old bird racing season in 2008 with his brilliant team of 18 Staf Van Reet widowhood cocks winning every thing in front of them. As Keith told me, ‘they were on fire this season’ and the results proved it, with his birds winning the Federation in nearly every race they were entered in. The 2008 old bird results were: 1st, 4th, 10th, 16th Federation (1683 birds) Taunton, 2nd, 4th, 6th, 13th Federation (1560 birds) Exeter, 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 7th Federation (980 birds) Newton Abbot, 1st, 7th, 17th Federation (951 birds) Bath, 1st Federation (1223 birds) Taunton, 1st, 2nd, 3rd Federation (1198 birds) Exeter, 1st, 4th, 12th,20th Federation (1085 birds) Newton Abbot, 1st, 3rd, 9th, 19th Federation (906 birds) Newton Abbot, 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th Federation (1086 birds) Newton Abbot, 1st, 2nd, 3rd Federation (803 birds) Newton Abbot, 1st, 2nd Federation (940 birds) plus twelve firsts in the local club. Keith only raced in three young bird events in 2008 to win 1st, 2nd Federation Bath (1,510 birds), 1st, 2nd, 5th Federation Yelverton and 1st, 2nd Federation ‘Gold Ring’. Brilliant pigeon flying by any ones standards! Top pigeon at the Warwickshire loft in 2008 was the three year old Staf Van Reet widowhood cock ‘Champion 58’ and he won: 1st Federation (980 birds) Newton Abbot, 1st Federation (951 birds) Bath, 1st Federation (1223 birds) Taunton, 1st Federation (1198 birds) Exeter, 1st Federation (906 birds) Newton Abbot and 4th Federation (1085 birds) Newton Abbot, winning 1st RPRA West Midland Region Sprint Award and 2nd RPRA UK Sprint Champion. What a pigeon! Keith bred both the sire and dam of the ‘ Champion 58’ cock and his sire won several premier Federation prizes including 1st Federation Truro, and was bred from the Mardon lines of ‘Ranger’ and ‘Radar’. The dam of ‘58’ is again of the Mardon bloodlines of ‘Ranger’ and ‘ Rally’.    

I first met Keith at the BHW Blackpool Show in January 2007 and he had just enjoyed a brilliant racing season, winning eleven times 1st Federation with his wonderful Staf Van Reet pigeons. The 2006 season had seen him win the RPRA West Midlands Region Sprint Award and 1st RPRA U.K. Sprint Champion Award with his brilliant Staf Van Reet widowhood pencil blue cock, ‘Champion 39’, which won the Federation four times, plus 2nd, 2nd, 4th and 5th Federation that year. This wonderful champion Staf Van Reet is now in the stock loft at Leamington Spa and has bred Federation winners already! In his first season in the stock loft he bred the brilliant nest pair of hens, ‘Gold Again’ and ‘The 31 Hen’, both premier winners as young birds in 2008. Keith and I met up at the Blackpool Show again in January 2008 and we both had meetings to go too, so didn’t have much time to talk, but on parting company we decided we would talk on the phone the following week. Keith is a hard man to pin down on the phone, but we did talk in the following week and I was highly delighted when he told me he had won the Federation eleven times again in the 2007 season, and won his second 1st RPRA U.K. Sprint Champion Award with his, ‘Champion 05’. This wonderful blue Hession / Mardon Staf Van Reet widowhood cock had won 1st Federation Newton Abbot (1216 birds), 1st Federation Bath (945 birds), 1st Federation Seaton (1301 birds), 1st Federation Newton Abbot (1466 birds), 2nd Federation Newton Abbot (885 birds), 2nd Federation Taunton (1377 birds), 2nd Federation Wincanton (2374 birds), 2nd Federation Taunton (1966 birds) to lift the RPRA West Midlands Region Sprint Award and RPRA U.K. Sprint Champion Award in 2007. A fantastic performance!

While at B.H.W. Blackpool Show in January 2007, I attended the R.P.R.A. Awards Presentation held at the Tower Ball Room on the Saturday night and had the great pleasure of meeting Keith and Sue Arnold for the first time. The Arnolds were there to pick up their R.P.R.A. Awards for their brilliant performances in the 2006 season which saw them win eleven times 1st. Federation in thirteen old bird races. While at the presentation I asked Keith if he would like to answer a few questions for an ‘ON THE ROAD’ article and he said he would be more than happy too.

I started by asking him about his early days and he replied, ‘I was born in West London and you could say I was born into a pigeon family, as my father Ken kept pigeons at that time and so did three of his brothers Fil, Freddie and Alec. When I moved up to the Midlands in 1980 I also had two cousins that raced pigeons in Surrey. I suppose I really got the pigeon bug when I was about 12 years old when my family and my dad’s brothers had all moved to the Morden and Carshalton areas in Surrey and although my father had not kept pigeons for many years I used to go round to my uncle Fred's house every night after school and at weekends and clean out his loft for 5 shillings a week. He raced in the Carshalton club and if I was lucky he would let me time in his pigeons occasionally. By the time I was 14 I really was still very keen on the pigeons and after a lot of persuasion I convinced my dad to give me six foot of his tool shed that I turned into my first loft. It was not long before the tool shed disappeared and a new sixteen feet loft was erected and the partnership of K. Arnold & Son was formed. In those days we had pigeons from every Tom, Dick and Harry but that did not seem to matter. I have to say, my late uncle Fil was a great help in gifting us youngsters which were superbly reared, in fact Fil was well known for being a mind of information in the local pigeon circle and I used to love getting inside his loft with him and listen to his patter. We flew in the Mitcham Common Flying Club in those days, which was probably the strongest club in the area at that time with many household names as members. I do remember winning our first race and all pools, which about £80 a fortune was in those days. I never really had any other sporting interests other than motor racing and I have visited many countries in the earlier years to follow the sport.’

When he lived in Surrey there were many top racing men in the local clubs but it was not until he moved to Leamington Spa in 1980 that he came across the partnership of Frank and Ann Tasker whose results were absolutely breath taking. Fortunately or unfortunately, which, ever way you look at it, Keith purchased a house just a few miles from Frank and Ann and it was a different world to down South. Keith has been a fancier on his own since 1977, when he married Sue but has always kept the partnership name of K. Arnold & Son. When he married he moved the pigeons from my parents house but being a realist, Keith knew they were not really good enough and brought in the Busschaerts and Cattrysse pigeons and after a couple of seasons the Busschaerts had gone and the Cattrysse pigeons became the main stay of the loft. Keith relocated the lofts and the Cattrysse pigeons to Leamington Spa in 1980 and they were to make their mark for him and establish the name Arnold in Warwickshire.

His present racing loft is 48ft long and 6 ft wide with a flat roof. It is divided into eight equal compartments, which are a mirror image of one and other. The front of the loft is covered with Filon, a fiber glass material which lets in plenty of light and absorbs the heat in the racing months which brings the birds into superb form with an abundance of down feathers coming away all of the time. The days of dark lofts for widowhood racing are long gone as far as Keith is concerned. The floor is scraped every day of the year. The vents are open during the breeding season but once the hens and youngsters are removed the vents are closed with very little air flow if any in the loft. The air is changed twice a day when the birds are exercised with the windows open which works very well for him. The breeding loft is 25ft long and 10 ft wide which houses 26 pairs, which are kept on a grilled floor with again plenty of sunlight getting into it. Keith also has an 18ft by 9ft young bird loft, which again has a grilled floor. He used to race the youngsters on a deep litter system with excellent results often winning most club races and the Federation many times but he now believe that the grilled floor is a better way of keeping the youngsters healthy.

He races his old birds on the widowhood system and at any one time he has 38 cocks to choose from. Keith pairs all his pigeons in early January and the youngsters are taken away with hens at about sixteen days old, just before the hens relay again. Once the hens are away the cocks are exercised twice a day for an hour each time. The first half hour of each session the windows are closed and then they get 30 minutes with the windows open to come and go as they like and this is when Keith observes the birds for any little quirks that they might have. This is when they get the fitness but not form or condition, which comes a little later. He repairs them to have them sitting for 5 days one week before the first race and during this time he trains the pigeons as many times as possible but only to a distance of 15 miles. They are widowed for a second time one week before the first race and are allowed to sit the eggs for a maximum of 2 days after which the nest bowl is removed. They then get the same one hour exercise session in the morning but now have an hour open loft in the evening with no more training. This is when he starts to see the form and condition coming into the pigeons and maintains, ‘you will not get that by training the guts out of your pigeons every day’. He shows the hens on the Friday with some sections seeing their hens for a few minutes without contact and others getting their hens for up to half an hour and allowed to tread the hens if they want. Keith then observes the results on the race day and makes a note of the bird’s arrival and bears this in mind for the next race. The hens are left with the cocks for 15 minutes for every hour flown in the race. With regards to feeding for the sprint races he reduces the fats and proteins at the start of the week and introduces them mid week onwards and also increases the carbohydrates at the same time. For the past few seasons he has concentrated on the sprint races flying to a distance of 170 miles but has topped the Federation from every channel race point that he has flown from through to Saintes, a distance of 450 miles.

He has been known for flying the Cattrysse pigeons for 30 years and what a wonderful family of pigeons they are and winning for many of his friends both here and overseas, which were based on original imports from Maurice Beuselinck. Although Keith had won the Federation from every race point with them he decided to concentrate on the sprint races and decided on the Staf Van Reets, which have won every thing before them. The best of this family was purchased because they had to live up to his already outstanding performances and they have not disappointed him. His stock loft houses 28 pairs of breeders which is mainly retired racers paired to one another's daughters, in fact 24 of the 28 cocks in the breeding loft have topped the Federation for him at least once with many other victories. The breeders are paired the same time as the race birds in early January and are fed a low protein and fat mix until the youngsters are hatched, then he then switch to a commercial breeding mix. Keith tells me, he has not any intentions of bringing in any new stock birds into the loft because he has an abundance of winning birds in the race team, which will eventually be moved into his breeding loft. Keith’s loft is built on a strong winning gene pool and you will not get any better than your own birds that are multi Federation winners that in the main become premiere breeders for him. He is a great believer in pairing his champions to the daughters of his other champions and in the 2008 season he mated ‘Champion 05’ to ‘Gold Again’, daughter of ‘Champion 39’ and winner of the Federation ‘Gold Ring’ in 2007, and they produced a young blue cock that won 1st Federation twice, including 1st Federation Yelverton.

Keith likes young bird racing and he has been known as a young bird specialist over the last few seasons, and he now likes to breed about 60 youngsters for him self. He has been racing them on the dark system for about 15 years and would not race them any other way. Keith darken the loft from 5pm until 8am and they are given an open loft from 1pm until 4pm when they are called in for their feed which is a high protein mix up until one month before the first race when they are then switched to 50/50 race and depurative mix. They are fed once a day with this mixture getting a full feed until they start to leave the barley. He will never worry about my youngsters flying in fact many of them have not left the garden when they go for their first toss which is only a few hundred yards across the fields They have several tosses up to 10 miles and are then jumped to 20 and 30 miles. They are trained during the racing season but only from the 10 mile point. He likes to race the youngsters paired and his young bird perches are 12 inches deep, which enables Keith to spread a few nest bowls around to encourage them to pair up. He only let them sit the eggs because I he do not like his youngsters to rear.

Keith told me, ‘I am very lucky because my wife Sue has always taken an interest in the pigeons and she is more than happy to tend for them if I am away from the loft. She always waits with me for the birds return on race days and records each ones arrival time for my records. I suppose if I am truthful I have always preferred inland racing because its gives me great satisfaction to see 6 or even 10 pigeons that you have conditioned come up the road together racing to the loft and through the windows in a flash. My pigeons have won so many victories for me taking the first three, four and five positions in the Federation on many occasions but I think the 2006 season is one that I will never forget. Having 18 Club races and recording 18 wins, with 13 old bird races and 11 times 1st Warwickshire Federation. 1st young bird Federation Gold Ring, 1st breeder / buyer, 1st West Midland Region Sprint Award and 1st. RPRA Sprint Award UK Champion 0-250 miles. I have so many good memories of my achievements but I think my most thrilling experience was to collect the RPRA Sprint Award at Blackpool in January 2007 because it was won against the best flyers in the country on a one on one basis, the best against the best.’

In the 2007 season Keith and Sue won 17 firsts in the local club and Old Bird: 9th Federation (1494 birds) Bath, 1st, 2nd, 7th Federation (1966 birds) Taunton, 1st, 3rd, 5th, 9th Federation (1937 birds) Seaton, 1st, 3rd , 5th  Federation (1466 birds) Newton Abbot, 2nd, 4th, 7th Federation (1646 birds) Newton Abbot, 1st, 2nd, 3rd Federation (1262 birds) Yelverton, 2nd, 3rd, 7th, 15th Federation (1377 birds) Taunton, 1st, 3rd, 13th,17th Federation (1301 birds) Seaton, 1st, 4th, 14th Federation (909 birds) Newton Abbot, 1st, 2nd, 4th, 7th Federation (945 birds) Bath, 2nd, 12th, 20th Federation (855 birds) Newton Abbot,1st, 2nd, 4th, 7th Federation (1216 birds) Newton Abbot, 5th, 7th, 11th, 15th Federation (1166 birds) Yelverton, Young Bird: 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 8th Federation (1745 birds) Bath, 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 5th, 6th, 7th Federation (1582 birds) Taunton, 9th, 10th, 11th, 12th Federation (991 birds) Newton Abbot, 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th Federation (550birds) Yelverton (Federation Young Bird Championship). The Arnold partnership also won the coveted BHW George Slade Swing Clear Trophy in 2007, with the blue pied cock, ‘The Slade Cock’, and he is the nest brother to their 2006 double Federation winner, ‘The 18 Cock’. This trophy is presented each season to the pigeon that produces the highest velocity in the U.K. on a nominated day in June and Keith won it in great style, by winning 1st Federation Newton Abbot doing 1713 ypm.

Keith Arnold’s brilliant Federation performance in the 2006 season was: 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th Federation (2142 birds) Bath, 1st, 2nd, 4th, 6th, 13th Federation (2374 birds) Wincanton, 1st, 3rd, 5th, 7th, 11th Federation (2146 birds) Taunton, 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th Federation (1804 birds) Newton Abbot, 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th Federation (1964 birds) Yelverton, 8th, 9th, 10th, 17th Federation (1872 birds) Newton Abbot, 1st, 2nd Federation (1695 birds) Taunton, 1st, 5th, 7th, 8th Federation (1819 birds) Newton Abbot, 1st, 2nd, 6th, 10th Federation (1531 birds) Yelverton, 1st, 16th Federation (1335 birds) Newton Abbot, 1st, 5th Federation (1411 birds) Newton Abbot, 1st, 13th Federation (1381 birds) Yelverton. A fantastic loft performance!

I asked Keith about his views on some of the thing going on in our sport, ‘I have no views on eye sign and to be honest I have not really been that interested in it. I have had many visitors to the lofts that have commented on how strong the bird’s eyes are which I take as a compliment but that's as far as it goes. I never show my pigeons because I expect the best from them in the race season and to achieve this I believe it is very important for them to rest both physically and mentally during the winter season. I have always tried to support my club and Federation and I am at present the President of the Warwickshire Federation a position, which I have held for the past 5 seasons. I am also the Chairman and a clock setter of my club. The sport has come a long way in the past 20 years but I am not sure if it is all for the good with things becoming very commercialized with pigeon racing becoming semi-professional which I fear will only drive more fanciers away. We are on a very slippery slope and it is going to be a very difficult job to stop the slide. I was at Blackpool recently to receive our award and it was so nice to see the young fanciers going up for their awards who are the future that we have to keep in the sport. It saddens me to see a good fancier leaving the sport because he cannot get into a local club to fly his pigeons which cannot be right, so if I could pass a rule for the good of the sport I would like to see all clubs imposed with a minimum radius and any fancier residing inside that radius can automatically become a member and any club refusing membership without good reason to be answerable to the local region. If I could give some advice to a new starter in the sport I would suggest that they seek out the best flyer in the area at that time and be all eyes and ears when making a loft visit and try to buy some youngsters from this winning loft. Do not get sucked in by results from yesteryear because they are of very little importance. I always say that in this sport you are only as good as last weeks result. To become successful, first and foremost you must have total commitment and a daily routine 365 days a year. With regards to inbreeding I do like to pair some of my birds for the purpose of line breeding to retain certain values in the family but as I said earlier I pair a lot of my winning, cocks to a daughter of another winning cock with some wonderful results. I do keep the odd few late breds, especially the hens off top performers but I do not use them for about 16 months after they have been bred, so those bred in 2006 will not be used until January 2008, they are just left to develop. I do not worry if a bird is a little on the flighty side but I cannot tolerate wild ones, they just unsettle the loft and no matter how well bred they are they have got to go. I do think that a good moult is so important for the following season and I give my birds every help in the way of feed and supplements that I can. I feed a commercial moulting mix at this time because the manufacturer as spent a lot of time and money in getting the mixture correct so I use their expertise. I generally part all my birds after the last young bird race in late September.

There you have it, the opinions and winning methods of the sprinting supreme, Keith Arnold of Leamington Spa! Thanks from my self, Peter and Tony to Keith and Sue for our recent visit to their home in Warwickshire, we all really enjoyed their hospitality. The pigeons, lofts and garden were a credit to them both! I can be contacted with any pigeon comments on telephone number: 01372 463480. See yer!

TEXT & PHOTO BY KEITH MOTT.