ON THE ROAD WITH KEITH MOTT...

DOM & CLAIRE McCOY

of GLADIATOR LOFTS - PART 2

Dom and Claire McCoy enjoyed a brilliant 2010 racing season and a couple of weeks ago I featured Dom’s performances and his life time in pigeons in ‘ON THE ROAD’ and this week we are going to have Part 2 of his story, and look at his successful methods and smart loft set up.

The McCoy’s have a wonderful loft set up at their home in Ashford and in recent years have dedicated most of their lives racing their Van Loon, Jan Huybregts and Karel Boeckx pigeons, with outstanding success. On my recent visit to ‘Gladiator Lofts’ I was particularly impressed with Dom’s five compartment 40ft stock loft, which had big roomy sections and 10ft aviary attached. The breeding sections and the nest boxes were very big and well ventilated, and the inmates looked in ‘mint’ condition. The section housing the Van Loon pigeons, which were nearly all blue pigeons, was a sight to behold! I handled several of Dom’s top breeders including his champion mealy cock, ‘Gladiator Del Pierro’, which is the sire and grand sire of countless winner, and winner of 17 firsts racing him self. A fantastic pigeon! He keeps a big team of stock birds, which are paired up the week after the BHW Blackpool show weather permitting and the main part of the stock birds are his fantastic Tom Roden and Bolton & Williamson / Van Loons. The race birds are not bred from, with all the young bird race team coming from the stock loft and he mixes his own corn for the stock birds. When bringing in a new stock bird, Dom looks for a pedigree of winning bloodlines, with a good line of outstanding winning pigeons. The stock loft is cleaned regularly and a deep litter is used on the floor. All Dom’s birds are parted at the end of September to get on with their mould and are given regular baths in the aviaries.

The race birds are housed in very smart 44ft loft, which runs down the side of the garden and Dom told me he races the old birds on the Roundabout system because it suits his life style, and the Widowhood is a terrible waste of good hens. Hen trains the old birds together, releasing the hens first followed by their mates, and by the time the cocks arrive home the hens are already locked up in their section. The sexes are kept separated mostly from Sunday until Thursday and are allowed to run together in the nest box section on Friday before going in to marking. Dom says, ‘the name of the game is keep them motivated’. The old birds are trained every day from Monday to Thursday, depending on the weather and the whole loft management is geared to sprint racing. The racers are fed on a ‘Garvo’ corn mixture and are given as much as the can eat, except on Friday when they get one early morning feed.

Dom told me on my visit to Ashford, that he is mostly interested in the sprint Federation and L&SECC racing, but has some older pigeons in the race team, and would like to have a bash at some 500 mile racing in the future. Dominic says his late father, Tom McCoy, was an outstanding pigeon racer in the London area for many years and his motto was no medication, plenty of training, good feeding and the best will survive and win. He says pigeon racing is a different game today and thinks the modern day sport is all about feeding, fitness, motivation and of course good pigeons. The young birds race to a 10ft loft, with ETS trapping. He never sends his young birds racing if they are on their last two flights, although these days he feels to be competitive in young bird racing they should be on the ‘darkness’ system. As soon as racing is finished he keeps the birds in the loft and feeds plenty of small seeds and butter milk in the drinkers. He never pulls flights to complete the moult and as yearlings his birds are treated with great respect and are mostly kept under 300 miles. He likes to be easy on the yearlings so they have a good moult and bring them out again as two year olds.

Dom works for his brother’s company and says this is good for his pigeon racing, as he can work when he wants to during the racing season and gets a friend to cover so he can spend time with the pigeons. His family are very instrumental in his pigeon success and his wife, Claire, takes a major interest in the birds. She enjoys waiting at the loft for race birds on race day and helps with the training, drives long distances to put up the odd bird that gets lost and takes the birds to the club for marking when Dom can’t make it. Dom has no interest in the eye sign theory, but tells me he enjoys showing his racers and if he didn’t race pigeons he could quite easily take up showing them. He enjoys taking his racing pigeons to open shows with his good friend, Martin Penfold and the drive miles just to win a card or two. Dom says, it is good fun and it is nice meeting up with fellow fanciers! He maintains to improve the modern day sport, all the small clubs in a ten mile radius should amalgamate into one big club and this would make the competition stronger.

Dom has been connected to the sport most of his life and says, ‘it certainly has progressed over the last twenty years, and now grown bigger in Asia and in the Far East. It is getting harder to encourage young people into the sport and this has resulted in a definite decline in the UK membership. Perhaps our friends on the local councils should allow young people and people who live in high rise flat the chance to erect pigeon lofts on allotments and this might get the kids away from their computers and in to the fresh air. The sport should have a bigger profile in the general media. In recent years pigeon racing has had very little exposure and if the Queen’s pigeon wins a major race it gets hardly any media coverage, but if her horse win a race it is plastered all over the news papers and television’. Dom thinks the best matings are pairing good pigeon to good pigeon and maintains ‘cream always come to the top’. He likes the odd latebred for stock purposes; apart from that they are a waist of time.

Dom & Claire McCoy’s ‘Gladiator Lofts’ had a wonderful year racing in 2010 and as the season progressed the performances got even better and better. Dom’s young birds finished the season in fantastic style by winning 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th Three Borders Federation (1,422 birds) Wincanton, 1st Three Borders Federation (836 birds) Exeter. Brilliant pigeon racing in one of the strongest Federations in the South of England! The two ‘Gladiator Lofts’ young bird Federation winners, which were both blue cocks, won other races in 2010 including ‘Gladiator Prince’, 1st Three Borders Federation Wincanton, plus 1st club Kingsdown and ‘Gladiator No Surprise’ 1st Three Borders Federation Exeter, plus 1st club Kingsdown. I recently spent a most enjoyable couple of hours in the company of Dom and Claire at their loft in Ashford and Dom showed me a string of premier performers, which included a young blue cock that I thought was outstanding, and he was ‘Gladiator Destroyer’, winner of 14th open L&SECC Guernsey (1,092 birds), 4th Three Borders Federation Wincanton (1,422 birds), 1st club Exeter. A really outstanding youngster!

Charity Auction for Children’s Hospitals

I recently had a phone call from Gary Essex of Hayes in Middlesex and he has been very busy obtaining a very good drought of pigeons for a Charity auction on behalf of two Children’s Hospitals in the London area. The proceedings will be divided 50% to the Peter Pan Ward for children at Hillingdon and 50% to the Great Ormond Street children’s ward. Gary has secured donations from many premier lofts in the UK and sale will be held on 17th April 2011 and penning is from 11am to 12pm when the auctioneer starts his work. The venue is the Hayes Workingman’s Cub, Pump Lane, Hayes, Middlesex, so go along and support this great event!

That’s our ‘ON THE ROAD’ article for this week! Thanks to Dom and Claire for a really enjoyable loft visit there set up and pigeons were a credit to them. Any pigeon banter can catch me on telephone number: 01372 463480. See yer!