Keith Mott writes about winning fanciers past and present

SOUTHERN COUNTIES SHOW RACER OPEN SHOWS 2008

In December 2007 I judge at the Southern Counties SR Society open show held at the Gravesend Rugby Club, which is one of the major show events in Kent, with the Society being one of the biggest in the UK. Just after Christmas 2008 I was invited to judge at the same event again and I must say the turn out on the day was a credit to the Society, with 357 birds being exhibited in the very spacious hall. Also judging was my brother Phil and Gordon Marsh, who both judged the show racers and I must add made an excellent job of it. Peter Taylor stewards for me, Ian Johnson judged the West of England Tumblers, and Society secretary, Dave Savage judged the four racing pigeon classes. The whole event was a wonderful spectacle! We judged about 12 classes each, but the real buzz came at the end when Peter Taylor judged the winners for the Best in Show awards, and the result was announced.

A young lad named John Harrod of Suffolk won Best in Show with a silver blue show racer hen and entering a team of 36 birds that day, had won a hat full of prize cards. The dam of this near perfect hen was bred by John Bell of Scotland and had won several major cards including 1st at the BHW Blackpool Show. The Harrod loft won BIS at this event last year and the last time I met up with young John he had won BIS at the RPRA Southern Region Show last November. John tells me he has all colours in his show racer team, but his reds, which were obtained from his father’s friend, are particularly strong in quality and win well when ever he exhibits them. He says his best performance to date is BIS at the RPRA Southern Region Show last year and has won several firsts at the BHW Blackpool Show. Fantastic performances put up by this young lad! John has only been into Show Race for four years and says he has three lofts, which houses his big team. He feeds a heavy racing mixture and cleans out regularly, not being keen on deep litter on the loft floors. His dad, Phil, is very interested in the pigeons and drives John to all the shows. Congratulations to young John on his wonderful performances over the last year!

Frank and Patsy May of Gravesend won Best Opposite Sex with a wonderful young blue racing pigeon cock and he was a Jan Aarden bred by the Southern Counties SR Society chairman, Jim Trim. This pigeon really stood out standing in his pen when you walked in the hall and was a worthy win of Best Racing Pigeon in Show. Frank told me the pigeon had flown the full programme through to 200 miles in the 2008 season and was not a ‘dark’ youngster, being flown national to the perch. The May’s team of 45 young birds are allowed to pair up if they want and get three 40 mile training tosses during the racing season. The partners have a 16ft x 5ft loft and race their 20 widowhood cocks and hens on the North Road. The main family kept is the Soontjens and like sprint racing up to 300 miles. The birds are mated up at the end of January and only rear one nest of youngsters before going on the widowhood system. Frank tells me he mixes his own corn and never breaks the racers down. He has been in the sport 35 years and has won the Federation many times, the best win being 1st Federation Doncaster by 15 minuets. Well done mate!

Class winners were: Adult Blue Cock: 1) C. Reynolds 2) C. Reynolds 3) J.J.B. Rice: Adult Blue Hen: 1) C. Reynolds 2) C. Reynolds 3) C. Bullard: 2008 Blue Cock: 1) J.J.B. Rice 2) C. Bullard 3) J. Trim & Daughter: 2008 Blue Hen: 1) C. Reynolds 2) J.J.B. Rice 3) J. Trim & Daughter: Adult Blue Chequer Cock: 1) J.J.B. Rice 2) C. Reynolds 3) J. Harrod: Adult Blue Chequer Hen: 1) J.J.B. Rice 2) C. Reynolds 3) C. Reynolds: 2008 Blue Chequer Cock: 1) C. Bullard 2) C. Reynolds 3) J. Harrod: 2008 Blue Chequer Hen: 1) J. Trim & Daughter 2) J.J.B. Rice 3) L. Bullard: Adult Red Cock: 1) J. Harrod 2) J. Harrod 3) J. Harrod: Adult Red Hen: 1) J. Harrod 2) J. Harrod 3) J.J.B. Rice: 2008 Red Cock: 1) J. Harrod 2) J. Harrod 3) L. Bullard: 2008 Red Hen: 1) C. Bullard 2) C. Reynolds3) J. Harrod: Adult Mealy Cock: 1) C. Reynolds 2) J. Trim & Daughter 3) J. Trim & Daughter: Adult Mealy Hen: 1) C. Reynolds 2) J.J.B. Rice 3) J. Trim & Daughter: 2008 Mealy Cock: 1) J. Harrod 2) C. Bullard 3) C. Reynolds: 2008 Mealy Hen: 1) J. Harrod 2) J. Harrod 3) L. Bullard: Adult Opals Cock: 1) C. Bullard 2) M/M D. Mackintosh 3) M/M D. Mackintosh: Adult Opals Hen: 1) C. Bullard 2) J.J.B. Rice 3) M/M D. Mackintosh: 2008 Opals Cock: 1) J.J.B. Rice 2) M/M D. Mackintosh 3) C. Bullard: Adult Colours Cocks: 1) M/M D. Mackintosh 2) M/M D. Mackintosh 3) M/M D. Mackintosh: Adult Colours Hen: 1) J. Harrod 2) J. Harrod 3) C. Bullard: 2008 Colours Hen: 1) J. Harrod 2) C. Bullard 3) M/M D. Mackintosh: Adult Cock TW: 1) C. Reynolds 2) J.J.B. Rice 3) L. Bullard: Adult Hen TW: 1) J. Harrod 2) J. Harrod 3) J.J.B. Rice: 2008 Cock TW: 1) J. Harrod 2) J. Harrod 3) C. Reynolds: Adult Racing Cock: 1) F. May 2) L. Bullard 3) C. Bullard: Adult Racing Hen: 1) M/M D. Mackintosh 2) C. Bullard 3) K. & B. Mott: 2008 Racing Cock: 1) F. May 2) C. Bullard 3) F. May: 2008 Racing Hen: 1) J.J.B. Rice 2) J.J. B. Rice 3) F. May. West of England class winners were: No.1. D. Savage & S. Tyson: No.2. D. Savage & S. Tyson: No.3. T. Phillips: No.4. T. Phillips: No.5. D. Savage & S. Tyson: No.6. D. Savage & S. Tyson: No.7. D. Savage & S. Tyson: No.8. D. Savage & S. Tyson: No.9. B. Collins: No.10. D. Savage & S. Tyson: No.11. B. Collins: No.12. B. Collins. Best in Show – John Harrod: Best Opposite Sex – Frank & Patsy May: Best Show Racer – John Harrod: Best Racer – Frank & Patsy May: Best West of England – Dave Savage & Sharon Tyson.

LOU'S BARCELONA LOFTS NEWS JANUARY 2009

Sorry for not being very regular with my write ups whilst John has been away, not really enough time to do everything I had to do my bits and pieces around Sophie-Lou and when she was in bed this just about gave me time to get all the birds cleaned out and fed and watered and I managed to bath them once a week, anyway  the good news is that John is back now and we are getting back on top of everything, since he has been home it has not gone above freezing he has been having to trek down to the house with watering cans to get water as the tap in the shed is well and truly frozen. He says the birds are in excellent health and in a beautiful condition, so with the quality of the birds that we have here we are extremely hopeful for our chances at the Barcelona International this year which as you all know will be our first time but we are looking at a team of around 80 so are extremely excited by this, incidentally the race this year is on the 3rd of July the day before our Sophie-Lou’s second birthday what a nice present if we could win it for somebody.

Anybody that would like to come across to watch the race would be most welcome although we cannot guarantee that the birds will be liberated on that day as obviously it is an International race but at least we know the birds will be given a good flying day, anyone wishing to stay over if you let us know then we will be able to book you into the local B&B. We will phone each fancier on arrival of their bird from Barcelona so hopefully our phone will be red hot I will also forward to Les Parkinson of Elimar and Ian Gill of Pigeon Portal so results can be viewed straight away. Once we have our 2009 race programme I will mail it out to you so you can see the races we will be entering your birds into.

When we get back from Blackpool we will be pairing up the 2 year olds then about 3 weeks later we will be pairing up the yearlings, the 2 year olds will not rear their youngsters as we will underlay their eggs, as you know all birds will be flown on the roundabout system. We are extremely pleased that we still have 79% of our original birds that will be entered for Barcelona this July  which are now 2 year olds  and they really were put through   some extremely tough racing due to terrible weather obviously out of our control but all that rigorous training they were given paid off because they battled on and made it home and we only dropped 19 so that just goes to show what a great location we are situated in and with favourable winds we see ourselves very highly placed in the results so watch this space!! We have a yearling team of 186 so exciting racing prospects for all concerned. We do not consider ourselves your average one loft race where thousands of birds will be carried as we will only accept 500 an absolute maximum of 550 birds which we will be able to give 100% commitment too and total attention as our aim is to get birds other than the normal countries right up there in the top positions.

Well that’s it for this week! I would like to finish by thanking Jim Trim for inviting me to judge at the open show, we all really enjoyed it very much, it was a great day out! I can be contacted on phone number: 01372 463480. See yer!