ON THE ROAD WITH KEITH MOTT

TERRY & SUE LEONARD

OF CARSHALTON

I recently had a telephone call from the Woodside ‘ace’, Terry Leonard, asking me if I could photograph his 2010 SMT Combine winner, ‘Fougeres Express’. When he visited my home in Claygate a few days later he brought three top racing cocks for me to photograph and after a couple of hours of good pigeon banter, I asked him if he fancied an article. He has been in the sport many years and has put up some brilliant performances!

Terry started up in pigeons at the age of twenty in 1978 and previous to that, was good friends at school with, Dave and Mick, the pigeon racing White Brothers of Epsom. After they had all left school Dave White moved into the house opposite Terry and after a few visits to Dave’s pigeon loft he caught the pigeon racing ‘bug’. Terry’s father had local pigeon racer Mick Heasman working with him and he presented some late bred youngsters to the young Terry too start him off in the sport. His first club was the Epsom Downs FC and his first loft was a 10ft x 6ft two section structure lashed up out of a load of wooden pallets that he had purchased for £10. They also straighten out the nails from the pallets and used then again! Terry and his dad built the loft, but he says, they were not carpenters and the shed reflected the fact! He also obtained birds from local Epsom fanciers including Dave and Micky White, Johnny Reynolds and Andy Norman, which started to win races from the outset. His early mistake was over feeding, but some of Terry’s early successes racing in the Epsom club were: 1st & 2nd club Blandford, 2nd club Vire and 1st club Bergerac. The fanciers who first impressed him with their performance was Bobby and Ken Besant of New Malden, who at that time were winning the Federation out of turn and in later years the late Ewell ‘ace’, Doug Walker. Doug was the first fancier to race on the widowhood system in the Epsom club and notched up countless winners in the early 1980s. Terry race well with his ‘Heinz 57’ birds for several seasons and got more serious when Andy Norman bred him some pedigree Pol Bostyn stock birds. Andy put him in contact with Cliff Dobson of Idle Bradford and he had some of the first direct Bostyn pigeons in the UK, and Terry won well with them.

Terry now races in partnership with his wife, Sue, to their loft in Carshalton and when he was interested in sprint racing he was very successful racing the Paul Arnold / Staf Van Reets pigeons. One of his best sprinters was the Staf Van Reet mealy cock, ‘Taunton Boy’ and he was bred from stock obtained from Paul Arnold and Vic Emberson. This brilliant cock won 1st Federation Taunton, 1st Federation Portland, 1st Federation Taunton and was 2nd Federation Taunton, being beaten by his nest mate when they dropped on the loft together. Brilliant pigeons! The current loft is an ‘L’ shaped Kidby style structure and is very well ventilated with chimneys in the roof. Terry races his cocks on the widowhood system and these are housed in two sections with a glass frontage. These sections are very spacious and he tells me he never keeps more than eight cocks in each parting. He has 30 young birds to race each season and these live in a nice 6ft x 6ft section. Terry tells me he stole his wife’s 8ft x 6ft garden shed to house his 12 pairs of stock birds and now her new replacement shed has also been taken over for extra young bird accommodation. What sort of man is he! Deep litter is used in the young bird compartments and Terry tells me, since he started using the litter he has not had young bird sickness. He thinks the main factors behind good health in the pigeons is a well ventilated and bone dry loft.

He races the widowhood system and says he has tried various feeding systems, breaking down, not breaking down, but now feeds a light mixture at the beginning of the week and a high carbohydrate strong mixture for the last couple of days before the race. He doesn’t show the hens to the racing cocks on marking night, but is a great believer in leaving the hens with their mates on their return from the race, some times several hours. The cocks are trained well before racing, but never after it has started, only exercising around the loft for an hour twice a day. They stay on the widowhood right through the season, but Terry says he will try re-pairing for the longest race at some time and see if this improves the results. He told me resting pigeons after a hard fly is very important, as some times they look OK, but are they alright inside? The loft has won many premier positions in the Federation, Combine and Classic through the years including 2000: London Federation young bird average, 2007: 10th open L&SECC Tours, 2008: 7th open L&SECC Guernsey (2), 2010: 1st SMT Combine Fougeres (215 miles), plus many times 1st Federation.

The Leonard loft’s three top racers are: ‘Fougeres Express’ a two year old widowhood blue chequer cock and he won 1st Woodside FC, 1st Surrey Federation, 1st SMT Combine Fougeres, lifting the ‘Eric Matthews Trophy’ in 2010. This game cock is a Romani Janssen / Kees Bosua cross and his sire won 1st Federation twice. The Combine winner is bred down from a wonderful line of winners, with his mother winning the Federation as a young bird and his grand sire winning seven times 1st club, three times 1st Surrey Federation and 1st SMT Combine. A brilliant family of winners! ‘Mr. Consistent’ another two year old blue chequer Romani Janssen / Kees Bosua widowhood cock and he has won a list of premier prizes in the Federation and L&SECC. ‘The Blue Boy’ a nine year old blue cock bred from the Paul Arnold bloodlines and is a grand son of Paul’s champion Staf Van Reet stock cock, ‘The Guvnor’. This great old widowhood cock won several top prizes including 1st Surrey Federation Portland and 2nd Surrey Federation Messac.

The two main families kept at the Leonard’s loft these days are Kees Bosua and Romani Fitzhugh Janssen, which have raced well pure and crossed. The stock birds are paired up in December and the first round of eggs are floated under the widowhood cocks. Terry visited Kees Bosua’s loft with some friends who were purchasing stock birds in 2005 and all the Leonard birds are bred from those purchases. Terry currently races about 40 young birds every season and is a great believer in schooling them well, by giving them many 30 miles plus training tosses before their first race. He puts his young birds on the ‘darkness’ system, giving them nine hours day light every day and they are taken off on the 21st June. He races them to the perch and they are allowed to pair up to motivate them for racing. The youngsters are raced through the programme to the longest race, Yelverton, which is 182 miles fly. He told me he prefers Wadebridge (214 miles) for the young birds, but this race point fell out of favour with the SMT Combine many years ago.

Terry’s occupation is an office manager for a fish and seafood wholesaler, which involves a lot of night work and some times time is a bit tight for his pigeons. These days he says he prefers middle to long distance racing and his current family’s race well up to Bergerac (450 miles), with the Janssen pigeons going well a bit further, up to San Sebastian (560 miles). One of his biggest thrills in his many years in pigeon racing was the first time he sent to the L&SECC young bird Guernsey Classic and had five birds drop on the loft together. At that time he was still using a T3 clock and tells me his hands were shaking as he put the five rubbers in the thimbles. He had the five best birds in the clock station and recorded 8th, 9th, 10th, 11th and 13th open. Terry is a none believer in the eye sign theory and never shows his racing pigeon, maintaining all those hours spent in the show pen in the winter months is detrimental to them when racing the following season. He likes a bit of work at his local club and has been President and Press Officer at different times.