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Keith Mott

Writes about winning fanciers past and present

Three Borders Federation (Newton Abbot 2)

 

The Federation held its second Newton Abbot race in mid-May and it was the turn of the Isleworth club to take the top honours, by recording 1st, 2nd, 8th, 9th, 10th, 18th and 19th. There were 1,476 birds competing, with Dave Ware of Brentford chalked up 1st, 10th, 19th Federation and first bird on the ETS, covering the 156 mile course in just 2 hours 45 minutes, recorded 1669 ypm. Dave’s two year old blue chequer cock, ‘The Newton Abbot Cock’, was raced on the widowhood system, winning the Federation by 15ypm clear and has previously won several good positions in the first six of the club results, including 11th Federation Yeovil as a young bird. His sire is one of Dave’s best Vanden Boch cocks, winner of 2nd Federation West Bay, 7th Federation Plymouth, and 17th Federation Portland and is the sire of other winners, including 1st club Messac. Dave won the dam of ‘The Newton Abbot Cock’ in a raffle held at the Spring Exchange Show in Holland and what a great 3rd prize she has turned out to be! Dave has called this Meuleman breeding hen, ‘Euro Lass’ and is a premier breeder, being responsible for several good racers.

Graham Evans & Dave Ware

Dave was born in Isleworth and is from a big pigeon racing family, with his dad, grand dad and uncle all being top fanciers in the Middlesex area. When Dave was eight year of age his father had a hold over from a Le Mans race and he was given the day off school to clock the pigeon, which in the final shake up won the race. Dave says he has been hooked on pigeon racing from that day! He started up on his own in 1998, with the Janssen and Dale Newcombe pigeons and race to his first 24ft loft in the Isleworth SRFC. He tells me his first mistakes in the early days were not listening to good advice from the senior members at the club and feeding too much. Dave now lives in Brentford and races his 24 widowhood cocks to a smart four section 24ft x 6ft loft in his back garden, which has plenty of ventilation. He pairs up in January and starts training two weeks before the first Federation racing, working the cocks up to 40 miles. He some times shows the hens to the cocks on marking night, depending on what time he gets home from work and the racers get the hens on the return only if they didn’t see them on the Friday night. Dave starts work at 07.30hrs and he told me his wife helps out with the pigeon management, which save a lot of hard work, with his long working hours. Dave mostly only races inland and feeds Versa Laga ‘sprint’ mixture. The main families kept are Busschaerts, Meuleman, Janssen and Staf Van Reet. He prefers inland race but on the rare occasion will send to France, with his best position being 1st club, 5TH Federation, 6th Combine Messac, but maintains his Three Borders Federation win from Newton Abbot is his best performance over all. The loft produces about 40 young birds to race each year and these are raced to the perch for the whole programme. If the youngsters pair up, Dave is not bothered, as he maintains it is a good motivation for racing and he trains them well, but how much road work they get is governed by the weather. The birds are always parted after racing each season and are given a good moulting mixture, plus lots of seed in the winter months. He like a nice eye on a pigeon, but says the most important thing is it can see out of them! Dave likes to show his birds at local club events in the winter months and has been successful, winning countless red cards, and the ‘Show Points Shield’ at the Isleworth club twice. He told me he would like to see the end of hawk problem in the sport, as it is getting progressively worse ever year, but what can we do about it? He rates Dereck Bellchambers and Ken Wise the best local fanciers and says they are successful at Federation, Classic and National level. 

Mr. & Mrs. Graham Evans recorded 2nd Federation with his good blue pied widowhood cock, ‘Apollo’ and he has previously won a list of premier prizes including: 1st club, 2nd Federation Yeovil (1722 birds), 24th Federation Yeovil (2300 birds), 1st club Portland, 2nd club Truro, 2nd club Exeter, 3rd club Exeter and now 2nd Federation Newton Abbot. This handsome cock was bred from two gift stock birds from Graham’s good friend, Ken Wise and they are down from the ‘Silver Shadow’ (Van Loon) and ‘Santa Voss’ (Staf Van Reet) bloodlines. Graham has been the sport just over 40 years and is the secretary of the Isleworth SRFC, taking over the job when the late great, Beat Penn retired in 1995. Graham tells me he is also the club’s Three Borders Federation delegate and enjoys racing his birds on the widowhood system. He is 100% a club racing man and maintains his families, Meuleman, Van Loon and Staf Van Reet, are the right ones for that job. Graham and his wife would like to congratulate Ken and Lyn Wise on their recent L&SECC Tours win! The first ten in the Newton Abbot Federation result were: 1) Dave Ware 1669: 2) M/M G. Evans 1654: 3) G. Dighton & Son 1641: 4) Paul Arnold 1639: 5) M/M R. Maybey & Son 1631: 6) M/M I. West 1627: 7) M/M D. Mansell & Son 1625: 8) M/M G. Evans 1624: 9) Tyler, Son & Maynard 1623: 10) Dave Ware 1621.

 

Three Borders Federation Up Date 

Reg and Richard Maybey of Virginia Water recorded their second Three Borders Federation winner of the 2011 season from Alencon at the end of May. The partners have a loft full of widowhood cocks that have won the Federation many times, so just for a bit of a change their Alencon winner was a yearling hen! She was a Sootan widowhood hen and her sire is one of the Maybey’s best racers, ‘92253’ and he has won many top positions in the Federation, including 1st Federation Wincanton, and 1st Federation Newton Abbot. The Maybey partnership races their old birds in two teams, one on pure widowhood in the Berkshire Federation and the other on the roundabout system in the Three Borders Federation. The racers are paired the same time as the stock birds in late December and the widowhood pigeons rear at least one youngster before going on the system. The racers start training three weeks before the first Federation race and are given ten tosses up to 35 miles. Richard tells me, un-like most widowhood fanciers they continue to train for the first two weeks in the season and then they just get exercise around the loft twice a day. The roundabout racers are not broken down, getting a ‘Sports’ mixture all the time, but the widowhood cocks get depurative mixture for two days after the race as a brake down and then go the ‘Sport’ mixture for the rest of the week. Both teams see their hens on marking night for about two or three minutes and on their return get their mates for about an hour, depending how tough the race has been. The partner’s present loft is Roy Bishop’s old Kidby loft which was sited at the ‘Pigeon Racing Gazette’ offices in Weybridge and it was extended five years ago, making it 65ft long and ‘L’ shaped. Reg maintains a loft must be dry and they use deep litter in the stock and young bird sections, with the old bird racers getting the floor boards scraped regularly. The weekend after the Alencon race the Federation sent 1,321 birds to Kingsdown and the South Downs club dominated result for the third time this season, recording 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, 12th, 16th, 17th, 20th, 21st and 24th open. Brilliant pigeon racing!

Colin Crook and Andy Iddenden recorded their third Federation winner of the season and at this stage on the season are a clear 31 points in front for the ‘Individual Points Trophy’. The partners are enjoying a wonderful season and from Kingsdown they chalked up, 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 5th, 6th, 7th and 16th. Colin and Andy had a great season in 2010 and the icing on the cake was to win 1st open SMT Combine from the last and longest young bird race, flown from Yelverton in mid-September and finish off a brilliant season in great style! Their Yelverton SMT Combine winner was their ‘darkness’ Staf Van Reet blue chequer hen, ‘The Combine Hen’, and she was bred from stock birds obtained from Paul Arnold of North Cheam. Her sire is their good dark pied cock, ‘Keith’, and he is a grand son of Paul’s champion breeders, ‘Santa Vos’ and ‘The Guvnor’. She was a member of Crook & Iddenden’s 50 bird strong young bid team in 2010 and had one Federation and the two L&SECC Guernsey races on her build to her Combine win. She was never paired up and flew natural to the perch. A nice twist the story is she was lost off top of the loft when very young and returned home with an orange plastic ring on her leg, just before training started. Colin says he has never taken the ring off and she still wears it today!

 

TEXT & PHOTOS BY KEITH MOTT