Midlands National Flying Club Forced to Substitute Fougeres to Portsmouth

A Clear Win for Cosby’s D & J Leitch

D & J Leitch

I suppose that in view of the weather predictions it was no real shock to be informed on Monday after the third day of holdovers with very little likelihood of a release the following morning that the decision was made to bring the pigeons back to England as the prospects of getting the convoy away  on the Tuesday morning in this country were far more likely. This proved to be the case with the flaps dropping at 7.15 am into blue skies and with a light North Easterly breeze blowing.

Let’s make no bones about this one, no one either plans or wants our race programme to be interrupted with substitute inland races and a few have voiced their opinion on the subject but in my mind the people who were controlling the race who made the decision on this occasion to bring the birds closer to home got it right with the pigeons welfare being considered to be of the greatest importance. A cancelled channel race is always a big disappointment but when all is said and done the majority of the members birds live now ‘to fight another day’. I believe that had conditions been cooler and the winds more favourable then the birds would have remained in France a little longer to try and get a cross channel race. I’m pretty sure that the organisations who took the gamble and released over the weekend are now in the main rueing their decision as none of them enjoyed a particularly good race and a couple that I am aware of have suffered what can only be described as disastrous losses. Highlighting the fact that conditions in Northern France were poor was further endorsed when the Antwerp Union brought their middle distance pigeons back home after two days holdover and with little chance of a liberation in the immediate days due to thunderstorms enroute.

On now to the actual race and the event certainly had a ‘silver lining’ for D & J Leitch who now actually only consists of the son Derek as his dad sadly passed away a few years ago. Derek clocked his first arrival a two year old widower cock at just one minute after 10 am to record a velocity of 1246 and provisionally wins 1st Open. The bird is of Vandenabeele x Janssen breeding and I’m told that he has been a solid but unspectacular performer that was until this race. I will get more information for the full report.

As is the norm with my reports I won’t mention any other names until the result is finalised, but it was pleasing to see some of the longer flyers appearing so highly on the attached leader board.

Click here to see the Provisional Portsmouth Result

As ever please send your birds details to me at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. if your name is in the first four placings in your section.

Mike Lakin