Keith Mott's On The Road...

MIKE & LYNETTE CHAPLING OF WOKING

Mike and Lynette Chaplin have enjoyed a wonderful 2009 season, with the high lights being their 3rd open L&SECC Guernsey (old hens) and 7th open BICC Falaise (old hens), both recorded in August. The partners have put up many outstanding performances through the years, but their fantastic result in the London & South East Classic Race from Guernsey in 2003 must rate as their best ever!

The L&SECC got the 2003 young bird season off to a good start, when the members sent 2,036 youngsters and 395 old hens to Guernsey. The Saturday morning of the race kicked off with full cloud cover over Guernsey, but the convoyer played the waiting game and liberated the convoy at 11.15hrs in a light northerly wind, with bright sunshine on the baskets. The birds cleared the Island well and returns were excellent.

Mick and Lyn Chaplin had the race of a lifetime, recording 1st open Young Bird Classic and 1st and 2nd open Old Hens Classic. When I visited Mick's home a week after the classic, he was bubbling with his brilliant success and he said it was the best race he had ever had. Mick clocked his Young Bird Classic winner first at 14.22hrs and it was his good "darkness" blue pied Frans Van Wildemeersch hen, “Chaplin's Girl", raced to the perch. This game little hen had three races on her build up to the Guernsey Classic and is bred down from "The Champ", who Mick says, is the father of the loft. Mick tried the "darkness" system for the first time that year and halfway through the season, Mick and Lyn went away on holiday for three weeks and their non-fancier son looked after the pigeons. He was given the instructions on how to keep the "darkness" system going, but Mick is doubtful that he followed them and is not sure if his youngsters were in total darkness or total light for the three weeks he was away. Mick says whatever the lad did he did the right thing, as the Chaplin youngsters had been coming brilliant! Mick told me that prior to the Guernsey classic the youngsters were flying well around the loft and in the week before the race, the whole team including the old hens were given four 40 mile training tosses, which he maintains put them right. He said the loft was on good form for about a month and recorded 1st club, 2nd Federation, 5th open Combine Bergerac (450 miles), 39th, 80th, 125th and 149th open L&SECC Bergerac, clocking all four birds on the day of liberation, just a couple of weeks before the Guernsey classic.

 Born and bred in Knaphill, near Woking in Surrey, Mick started up in pigeons as a 15 year old, in 1962 with Gift birds from Jim Povey and John Furness, his first loft being a 6ft x 4ft converted shed. He joined the Woking RPC, which was one of the premier clubs in the Surrey Federation at that time. He recalls that he won his first race from Nantes in 1966, with a little black pied hen, and all the premier fanciers in the Woking jokingly said it must have escaped from the basket. He married his wife, Lynette, in 1971 and had to sell all his worldly possessions including his pigeons so they could buy their first house.  He still maintained his interest in pigeons by clocking in for John Furness and cleaning his lofts out Sunday mornings. Finally in 1987 after moving to West End village he decided it was time to start up again and John Furness lent Mick several pairs of Frans Van Wildemeersch stock birds for three months. These, with a few of the Furness Burghers formed the base of the Chaplin loft today. Mick's great old cock "Champ" was bred from these original Van Wildemeersch pigeons. Further additions over the past few years of Stud Topper Busschaert lines, Van Loons from Tony Hayward and Jan Aardens from Dereck Squire have further strengthened the team.

Mick is a member of Pyrford RPC where he is the chairman, the London & South East Classic club, the National Flying Club and the British International Championship Club. Lynette, Mick’s wife has been a brilliant help with the pigeons all through the years and their 3 grown up children although not really interested in the pigeons have always looked after them while they are away on their frequent trips abroad. Mick says that the small Pyrford club is friendly and well organised and its members have won no less than 9 times 1st open London & South East Classic Club races.

Mick has a very smart self-built loft 20ft long with three sections with stall traps and a small 6ft stock loft. The widowhood section has 18 nest boxes and the loft is cleaned out every day, when a light dusting of sand is thrown on the floor. He races 18 cocks on the widowhood system and these are paired up normally in mid January but this year it was mid February due to holidaying in Egypt cruising on the Nile. The Chaplin loft is flown on a basic widowhood system, with the racers being paired the same time as the stock birds, so the breeder's eggs can be floated. The cocks are put on the widowhood system while on their second round of eggs and are given as many training tosses as possible before the first race after which they are not trained with most of the team flying the whole programme. The hens are shown to the cocks on marking night for inland races only and get their mates for about an hour on their return from the race. Mick sometimes re-pairs a few cocks for the longer distance events and told me his good "69" cock which had won 1st club, 1st Federation, 7th open SMT Combine Le Mans when paired and sent sitting won 13th open L&SECC Pau & 6th open L&SECC Pau in consecutive years after which he was put to stock. The same procedure was adopted last year with blue cock, ‘West End Boy’, resulting in 9th open NFC Saintes. Another very consistent cock is 1West End Charlie’, who has flown the channel 20 times over the last 4 years winning many prizes including this year 35th open NFC Tarbes.  With Mick’s small team he has to be selective in his race selection and only sends small teams to the channel races. At the end of old bird racing, the cocks are re-paired so the widowhood hens can be trained with the young birds and they are sent to the L&SECC, NFC and BICC Old Hens races. This practice has been very successful for the Chaplin loft in the past few seasons including 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 4th & 6th open in the L&SECC.  In the NFC Old Hens over 20 open positions including 5th, 5th, 7th, 9th, 11th, 11th, 13th, 15th, 15th and 20th. Other principle recent L&SECC results include 1st open YB Guernsey, 3rd open Bergerac and in the BICC seven top 20 positions including provisionally 7th open in this years old hens race also many club wins have been achieved.

The birds are never broken down but are fed a mix of Gerry Plus and Widowhood mix and as the channel races get longer Irish mix is added, medication is used only in extreme cases as over the years Mick is very selective in his introductions as he believes this is one of the main causes of disease that is prevalent these days as ones own pigeons natural immunity can be impaired when pigeons are introduced from other sources.  Aviform products are also used regularly in the water.  During the close season a winter mix and barley is used. He breeds 35 young birds for racing each season and they are put on the "darkness" system from weaning. After they are weaned, they are fed on maple peas for about four weeks and then are raced on a quality young bird mixture. The youngsters are raced to the perch, but nest bowls are put in the section and if they want to pair up for racing, they are allowed to.

The Sparrowhawk problem population has increased dramatically over the past few years locally and has lost at least five birds he knows of to attacks around the loft. Mick thinks that the future of pigeon racing as we know it is bleak as there are no youngsters coming into the sport.  When Mick started pigeons there were six other young boys in the local Woking club all of whom turned out to be successful local fanciers. Also with clubs and federations getting smaller and smaller the way forward will be for amalgamations of clubs with the Federations undertaking inland racing only and the specialist clubs organising the channel racing. In the longer term the outlook for pigeon racing will be more centralised with individuals buying or breeding birds to be raced against others from a single loft by a loft manager/trainer on their behalf as is becoming more popular with the increase on single loft races. 

There you have it the wonderful success of Mick and Lynette Chaplin of Woking! I can be contacted with any pigeon comment on telephone number: 01372 463480. See yer!

TEXT & PHOTOS BY KEITH MOTT.