DAVID & LESLEY BRIDGER

of East Preston

1st Open L&SECC Tarbes 2011

by Keith Mott

The London & South East Classic Club held it Tarbes ‘Blue Riband’ race at the back end of June and this season’s 560 mile event turned out to be a very tough affair. The birds were liberated with the CSCFC birds at 07.00hrs on the Friday in a no wind situation at the super market car park liberation site, but soon met up with northerly winds on route which greatly reduced the chances of day pigeons. One game pigeon was clocked on the day, at 21.33hrs, on the south coast and was owned by a delighted David Bridger of East Preston, which is near Littlehampton in Sussex. His Classic winner was his beautiful three year old pencil blue pied hen ‘Pipi’ and she flew the 524 mile race, being sent sitting 12 day old eggs. She is paired to one of David’s premier racing cocks, ‘The Star’, winner of several premier positions including 1st Federation Messac and 6th Federation Yelverton. Two weeks after the Tarbes Classic, Peter Taylor and I made the 50 mile drive down to the south coast to visit Dave and Lesley and to see their champion pied hen, ‘Pipi’. We picked a beautiful July day for the visit and the Bridger’s wonderful garden was in full bloom. David told me Lesley is the gardener and I must say she certainly knows her job, the garden looked magnificent!

On our arrival at Bridger’s home, we sat and had tea in their back conservatory, and I began by asking David if he had enjoyed his Tarbes success and he replied, ‘Being asked to have a report on my loft following my win from the London & South East Classic Club Tarbes is by far the biggest honour that I have had in nearly 50 years of racing. I have in the past had the only bird on the day in the club from Thurso 551 miles, timed from both Thurso and NFC Pau on the same day and have been 1st Club, 1st Federation, 1st Combine Thurso and 1st Club, 2nd Federation, 2nd Combine from Thurso, but nothing tops the feeling I had when timing my London Classic Club bird on the day from Tarbes flying 524 Miles 587 Yards at 9.33pm. The icing on the cake was when I received a telephone call from the Classic Club Secretary, Terri Hoskin, to inform me that it was the only bird timed on the day. As I live on the south coast only about half a mile from the sea shore it was obvious to me that I could have been beaten into first place because birds flying further up country need only to be timed early next morning and I would have lost on hours of darkness combined with birds having to fly a further distance. Fortunately for me the rain that had set in around 20.00hrs on the day of liberation, kept up through the night and did not ease off until about 07.00hrs on the Saturday morning. This put paid to any early second day birds but it was not until about lunch time of the second day that the provisional result was put on the Classic Club’s web site which confirmed that Lesley and I had won 1st SW Section and 1st Open. I have never lost any sleep over winning the Club, Federation or Combine but I certainly did that night’.

When I asked him about his new champion, he told me, ‘the Tarbes winning bird is a 3 year old hen now named ‘PIPI’, which came about as a result of me first thinking that the quick flash that I saw over the loft was a bat. It was nearly dark and raining, and I had almost given up on timing a day bird and was sitting in the conservatory half hoping but could not clearly see the loft due to rain drops on the glass and the fading light. I initially thought that I had seen a Pipistrelle Bat flick over the loft which is often the case but on closer inspection found my game hen on the landing board. She was sent to the race sitting 12 day old eggs and had previously this year had a few inlands races, then Fougeres with the South Coast Federation, Tours with the L&SECC and although being one of those birds that are always thereabouts had never set things alight. Looking at the breeding of ‘Pipi’ you can see why she performed as she did. Her four grandparents are as follows: The paternal grandsire is a direct son of Somerset Lad 1st Section, 1st Open NFC Pau Grand National 560miles (4524 birds) for the Patrick Bros. The paternal grand dam was bred by Crammond and Langstaff of Fontwell out of a cock and hen from Emiel Denys. The cock is from ‘Klein Tee’ when paired to ‘Lady Barcelona’ and the hen is a daughter of ‘San Sebastian’ 1st International San Sebastian. The maternal grandsire is a direct son of champion ‘Gwen’ 1st Section 1st Open NFC San Sebastian for Joe Raeburn and the maternal grand dam is from the Patrick Bros champion ‘Jonge Favoriet’ and champion ‘De505’. It was all in there waiting to come to the surface and looking at the pedigree that this hen has it is no surprise that she came up trumps on the day’.

David has lived at the current address in East Preston for the past 30 years and apart from a few years living in Rustington and Littlehampton, just after being married he has been in East Preston all of his life. Like a lot of lads in the sixties he started to get some fantails and pigeon odds and sods together when he was about 12 years old. This moved on to him catching and reporting strays, and always hoping that the owners would agree to transfer them to him. David’s first loft was part of his fathers old chicken shed, but after some persuasion a small 6ft x 6ft loft was soon erected and a few years later was extended to a 12ft long structure, with an 8ft section for old birds and a 4ft section for young birds. This housed 12 pairs of old birds which were all flown natural and he bred 16 young birds for racing every year.

After obtaining a letter of consent from his parents he joined the Littlehampton RPC in the winter of 1963 at the tender age of 14 and in 1964 he had his first young bird race from Christchurch and came last. In the next race from Dorchester he recorded 2nd club with a bird bred by his good friend and at the time fellow club member Des Coulter. That was it, the bug had well and truly bitten, and his enthusiasm today is no less than it was nearly 50 years ago. Des provided him with several good young birds and also some older stock birds to get him going, and in addition he added birds from other club members at the time namely Peter Griffin, Sam Greer and George & Alf Robinson. Dave didn’t keep any particular strain but used the old adage of pairing the best cock to the best hen and this paid off. He thinks this method is still as important today as it was then. The young David probably did not do the birds justice but it was a good start as many positions were won with offspring of these birds. His first winner was in 1966 from Selby, 200 miles on the north road and in this year which was only his second year racing the full season he had 1st, 2nd and three 3rd in the local club. He was then 17 and just starting to get the hang of things, but now some 45 years later, he says he is still learning.

Feeding beans, beans and more beans was one big mistake he made in the early days of his pigeon racing. He says, ‘nowadays the feeds available are endless and to a new starter in the sport it must be very confusing. The only advice I can give in this direction is to befriend a fancier who is winning the races that you would like to win and follow his methods as closely as possible. After a while you will now when to adjust the quantities and type of food to give the birds the best help possible in achieving the condition that you want them in for a particular race. In those days as a young lad names such as Eric Canon and Jim Biss were the top flyers and always seem to time in when others struggled and although I did meet Eric Canon many years later how was I to know at that time that they were to become the legends that they are’.

In 1983 while he was busy renovating the house which he and Lesley now live in, he joined up with Charles Langley and formed the partnership of Bridger and Langley. Charlie had retired to the coast from his home town of Mitcham and became David’s great friend and mentor until in 1997 he moved on to the great pigeon club in the sky at the grand old age of 91. David said, Charles still maintained his interest and lifelong passion for racing pigeons right up to the end. He was a fancier of great renown in the Carshalton area in his younger days but always maintained a razor sharp enthusiasm and was a past master of conditioning birds to fly at almost any distance, wanting to win every race from first to last through the season. One of the partner’s best performances was from Thurso (551 miles), when they timed on the day to win 1st Club, 1st Federation and 1st Combine winning an RPRA award for the best individual performance for a bird flying the north route over 450 miles.

David and Lesley have a very smart loft set in the very special garden and when I asked about the loft and racing system, I was told, ‘the loft set up has grown over the years but I have always kept it to a size I thought was manageable. It is currently 32ft long with a tiled roof divided into six small sections with sliding doors between each section. This enables me to separate off certain sections or have the birds running together depending on how I want to treat them for racing. I have a small stock bird section which has an aviary so that the birds can enjoy the sunshine and fresh air something, which I feel is essential if you are going to keep birds in captivity. At the start of the season I usually have about 24 race pairs and 12 stock pairs and breed about 45 young birds with quite a few regularly given to other club members. The youngsters are darkened from mid March until the first week of June which helps them keep in good feather for the later young bird races. I get nearly as much satisfaction when somebody else wins with one of the birds bred at my lofts than as if I had won myself. With regard to feeding I do not have any particular fads as long as the feed is of good quality. I regularly feed Gem foods from Brian Wall in Chichester together with Beyers young bird mix, Depurative and Energy mix and Versa Laga Best All Round. The quantities and mixture are adjusted to accord with the racing that is taking place i.e., fed very lightly on the short sprint races and heavier feeding with energy mix as the distances increase. Feeding is a bit of a science and can make the difference in being regularly at the top of the result sheet or not. Getting the balance just right takes a lot of practice and heart ache along the way especially with young bird racing. I give the birds a multi vitamin in the drinker for the last two days prior to basketing and they have electrolytes in the water the day of their return. The only other treatments are for the normal canker and cocci which I give them while sitting their first round of eggs and then again about every 3 to 4 weeks during racing. They are treated for worms via an Ivamectin drop on the back of the neck at the beginning of the season and are vaccinated for Paramyxo prior to racing’.

All David’s pigeon friend call him David ‘long distance’ Bridger, but he tells me he enjoys all racing long and short, but gets his big ‘buzz’ from racing long distance. The loft houses several inland Federation winners and has been very successful with Mark and Dick Evans’ Vandenabeele pigeons. David has been up to Yorkshire several times to visit ‘Myrtle Lofts’ and owns grand children of the champion breeder, ‘Shadow’. The Bridger loft has won premier positions in the Federation, Combine, Classic and National through the years and in one young bird inland race took the first sixteen positions in the Federation. Not bad for premier long distance racer!

Peter Taylor and I both agreed the Bridger loft visit was one of our most enjoyable! Thanks to David and Lesley for their hospitality and congratulation on the most deserved win from the L&SECC Tarbes ‘Blue Riband’ race. Well done, on a wonderful performance! I can be contacted with any pigeon matters on telephone number: 01372 463480. See yer!