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LONDON & SOUTH EAST CLASSIC CLUB VIRE CLASSIC 20th AUGUST 2011
The London & South East Classic's first YB race from Vire had an entry of 1300 plus Young birds and 412 Old Hens, which were liberated at 0830 hrs in a light south east and variable wind.
Young Birds
1st Open, 1st North West Section: Mr. Mrs Dunstall and Son of Taplow. Having not raced much in the past 10 years, a decision was made to fly young birds this season and it appears that the winning formula has continued, having been NFC YB Winners in 1999. This young bird season they have taken the top ten positions in the BBO Federation young bird race, this was followed by 2nd Fed and last week they were 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th and 7th Federation. The bloodlines of this inform loft and the majority of the youngsters are Leo Van Rijn, with the Classic winning youngster being off ‘Hatrick’ and ‘Replay’ lines. Many congratulations to Philip, Maria, Simon and Ben with a great team effort. The family actually clocked a total of eight pigeons in 2 minutes 30 seconds!
2nd Open 2nd North West Section was another inform loft of Gary Inkley. This youngster like the winner flew in the Guernsey Madhatters Race the previous week and the bloodlines are Van Dyke x Dirk Seper. The mother is a daughter of Page Bros ‘Spitfire’ and the sire is from a direct pair from the Dutch master’s loft. Again Garry’s in form loft had seven youngsters almost together from the Vire Classic.
3rd Open 1st South West Section was probably the number loft in Europe of Mark Gilbert of Windsor. Mark was not available to give details.
4th Open 3rd North West Section was the great Terry Haley of Abbotts Langley. Terry’s youngster was purchased at the Southern Region Charity Auction and was bred by Brian Wall of ‘Gem Products’. This bar hen is of Ed Sittner bloodlines and has won 2nd club, 9th Inter Counties Federation Salisbury. Speaking to Terry he said he still enjoys both North and South Road racing and does from time to time switch the birds.
5th Open 2nd South West Section was by the partnership of P. Hathaway & S. & B. Poole of Egham. This youngster is off Busschaert bloodlines, with her sire being of Ron Williams’s bloodlines (the Top NIPA fancier) and was bred by Formula 1 Lofts the same way bred as their BICC Winner. This young darkness hen was flying to the perch and will possibly be sent to next week BICC Guernsey or the next L&SECC YB Race from Carentan.
1st South East Section 25th Open was Mr A Jackson of Tilbury. This young dark hen is of Gaby Vandenabeele x Robert Ritton bloodlines. Prior to this race the youngster only had five training tosses from Portsmouth, as Mr Tilbury does not fly in a local club.
1st North East Section was the Martin & Watts, but I have no details to hand at present.
Old Hens
3rd Open 1st North West Section was 78 years young Jim Cody of Uxbridge with a Soontjen yearling hen. The parents were bred by Alan and Jeanette Jenkins. The yearling hen is raced spare in the young bird loft and has some previous experience of doing well being Jim’s second pigeon from the NFC young bird National last season.
4th Open 1st North East Section was Tony Heath of Grays with a yearling hen. When speaking to Tony he was saying ETS is good as initially Tony thought this pigeon was one of his later club pigeons from Poole and was in no hurry to check, however he soon realised and verified the pigeon a bit sharpish! The bloodlines of this hen are Camphuis / Janssen via his very good friend, Derek Pedley of Fleetwood, near Blackpool. The sire is a grand son of Champion ‘O5’ and the dam is a grand daughter of Champion ‘Super Krom 215’.
1st South East Section 32nd Open was Barnes Bros of Swanscombe. First bird clocked for the brothers, Ian, Barry and Trevor was a 09 Van Houte Schorryse cross sent celibate. She was raced as a yearling and had previous to this race been the brother’s first bird back from the Bromley Guernsey Open. She was very well bred for this type of race as the sire had won five times 1st club from across the channel and the dam was a winner of 1st club Falaise, and was then put to stock.
Good luck to all sending in our second Classic from Carentan on the 10th September incorporating the ‘gold rings’.
DARYLL LUXFORD (L&SECC PRESS OFFICER)
PRESIDENT’S COMMENT - KEITH MOTT
A great start to our 2011 young bird Classic season, with our members enjoying a great race with good birdage! Congratulations to Phil and Maria Dunstall of Taplow who I’m told had several other young birds on their ETS close up behind their winning pigeon! The husband and wife partnership have enjoyed some wonderful success in recent seasons, racing in National and Classic events, with their young birds. Several seasons ago they had a brilliant race from the London & South East Classic Club young bird Guernsey race and had ten drop on the loft together to record 2nd, 4th, 6th, 11th, 12th, 15th, 18th, 19th, 20th and 22nd open. A brilliant performance! I visited the Buckinghamshire loft in the winter of 1999 after the Dunstall’s had really set them alight that season with their youngsters, including winning 1st section E, 1st open National Flying Club Vire (5,850 birds); 1st Berks, Bucks & Oxon Federation Weymouth (3.403 birds); 2nd section, 2nd open L&SECC Guernsey (1,723 birds), all with young birds. The partner’s 1999 Young Bird National winner is a Hartog blue hen named, Champion ‘Misty’. She is bred down from the ‘Green Ring’ lines, which have been very successful for the Dunstall loft. Well done to Phil and Maria on their latest success from Vire and will be going up to Buckinghamshire to up dating their pigeon racing story in the next couple of weeks!
What a brilliant performance by Mark Gilbert, 1st open Old Hens and 3rd open Young Birds from the Vire Classic! Mark is becoming a legend in the in the Classic and National racing pigeon world and wasn’t available for comment after the race, but what a brilliant 2011 season he is enjoying, probably one of his best ever. In the last few years Mark Gilbert has won just about every major accolade at National level and of course his biggest triumph was winning the Dax International in 2004. He has been a leading force in the L&SECC for many years, winning 1st open three times, including the longest old bird race from Bergerac in 2006. It was one of the hardest Bergerac races of all time and the Gilbert loft won it in great style recording 1st and 2nd open on a velocity just touching 900 ypm. In 2004 the L&SECC sent 1366 birds to Guernsey for the final young bird race of the season and Mark won it with his good darkness Soontjen blue chequer hen, ‘Abigail’. Mark won the L&SECC Guernsey Classic in 2004 and recorded a brilliant season’s double, having won the NFC Pau / Saintes Grand National in the July. ‘Abigail’ had flown the English Channel three times that season, recording 3rd open UBI Combine Guernsey, well up in the NFC Falaise result and 1st open L&SECC Guernsey. A brilliant hen! She was raced on Mark’s semi-widowhood system and on handling her the day after her Classic win I noticed she had cast her third flight. ‘Abigail’ was bred from two Soontjen stock birds and her dam had bred several Federation winners.
Will all members please note that the Steyning marking station is closed as from our Bergerac race and the last 2011 Young Bird / Old Hens race is still Friday marking and the new venue for the southern fanciers is: YMCA Football Ground, Gorings Mead, Horsham, Sussex, RH13 5BP. Marking times at Horsham are: 09.00hrs to 11.00hrs and for any further details telephone Brian Doick on 01903 816247. The Carentan Young Bird / Old Hens race on 10th September is the Classic’s ‘Gold Ring’ race and it is very satisfying to see we have nearly £3,500.00 in Breeder / Buyer and ‘Gold Ring’ prizes set up for the two young bird Classics this summer. I missed the marking of the Vire race, as I was a away on holiday with the kids in Hampshire and it’s thanks to Tony Dann who didn’t send to the race, but still came and filled in on the Unikon marking at Leatherhead. Well done to Rube Johnson, Ian Mead and Steve Appleby for producing a great Vire Classic!
WEATHER REPORT - STEVE APPLEBY
The weather for the first LSECC young bird race were generally very good borne out by the high velocities recorded the leading pigeons. Conditions over northern France were of broken cloud and sunshine all the way from Vire to the northern French coastline. The Channel was clear just some high broken cloud and visibility excellent. The only fly in the ointment was a rain that cloud developed and affected some areas of the southeast during the afternoon but this soon migrated away north eastwards. Overall winds were light mainly from the southeast over France changing to south westerly across the Channel and southern England.
CONVOYER’S REPORT VIRE RACE (20/8/2011) - RUBE JOHNSON
What a weekend! As I have always stated, all you can do as a pigeon convoyer, is produce the best race possible with the conditions you are presented with on the given weekend. The weather conditions were perfect for the Vire Classic and I hope every one enjoyed a perfect race!
On the Friday marking day we did our usual pick ups in Essex and Kent and arrived at the Leatherhead marking station at about 13.00hrs, with all the birds being watered at the marking stations. After loading the last lot of crates we drove out of the Leatherhead car park just after 15.00hrs and arrived at Portsmouth docks at 17.10hrs, where we watered the birds. We sailed for France at 22.45hrs, docking at Caen at 06.15hrs to perfect weather conditions and drove through France in blue skies and sun shine. We arrived at the car park liberation site, which is situated in the town square in Vire, at 07.30hrs and I must say it is one of the best site that I’ve been to in France! We watered the pigeon on arrival and after resting them we liberated at 08.30hrs in a very light South East wind. The 1,800 birds cleared the site well in a Northerly direction and the weather was perfect on our drive back to Caen docks.
COMPILED BY KEITH MOTT (L&SECC PRESIDENT) |
