Keith Mott writes about winning fanciers past & present

The Champions of Yesteryear (Part 59)

 Mr & Mrs MICK GREGORY

OF NOTTINGHAM

Mick Gregory was a carpenter by trade and this reflected in his wonderful loft set up which was sited on a hill side above his house. The four lofts were all his own work and were a credit to him. His best pigeon was his Janssen blue widowhood cock, ‘Jep’, and in one season he won 4 x 1sts. in the club, 1st. open Super Sprint Durham (£5 per bird) and 3 x 1st. Federation. Mick said this champion racer was on song for 14 weeks, winning the Federation from the first old bird race, then went on to win the Federation from the last two races and had never gone past the 180-miles stage in his great racing career.

Mick raced 32 cocks on the widowhood system but never hens and paired up in mid-January. Mick maintained his system was very simple, with the hens being taken away with one youngster at 14 days old and the cocks finish feeding one young bird. They were repaired two weeks later, with the cocks being trained ten days on eggs and then were put on the widowhood system. The races were never broken down and were hopper fed a good widowhood mixture, with seed added on a Friday afternoon. Mike sometimes showed the hens to the racing cocks on marking and said ‘Jep’ was shown his hen when he won the Federation the first time and wasn't when he topped the federation the second and third times. The Gregory pigeons were split into two teams, sprint and long distance, racing on the north road. Another premier racer in Mick's loft was the Janssen x Van Loon blue chequer cock ‘43’ and he was a very bad trapper, but had won many prizes including 1st. club, 2nd. Federation Fraserburgh on 984 y.p.m. His full brother was the ‘09’ and he had won 1st. club Lerwick (490 miles). Brilliant racers!

Mick had won the Federation many times and in recent seasons had won his section in the N.R.C.C. with Gold Medal winning performances. His main family was Janssen x Van Loon and said, on obtaining eight pairs of stock off Ken Darlington, had never looked back, recording brilliant performances. He kept 15 pairs of stock birds and bred 60 young birds each season. The young cocks were saved for the widowhood systems and the hens raced right through the programme to Perth. I was very impressed with his young bird, loft as his youngsters have to enter a mock-up race crate to drink, which teaches them to put their heads through the bars to get to the drinker. Great idea! He took a two week holiday to get his young bird team trained up, with lots of 40-mile tosses and said he hated young bird racing. The youngsters were not put on the darkness and were raced natural to the perch.

One of the very best widowhood lofts in the Midlands, this week! If you need to contact me, you can telephone: 01372 463480.

TEXT & PHOTOS BY KEITH MOTT.