“ON THE ROAD” WITH KEITH MOTT.
Three Borders Federation (Wincanton Race 2).
Peter Clements is a name you see regularly on the Three Borders Federation race results and he has won the Federation many times over the years. Peter is a great lad and races with outstanding success in the strong Isleworth club. He recorded his first Federation winner of the 2026 season from the Wincanton (2) race, when Dom McCoy liberated at 06.30 hrs in to a West / South West wind situation. It was an excellent race and Peter recorded two real ‘bangers’, winning 1st and 2nd Federation! The first two birds on the ETS were two yearling blue chequer roundabout hens, with ‘Woodstock Gem’ winning the Federation. Peter went to the Epsom Show, which is held at the race course every year, with his good friend, Graham Putter and they saw a handsome Vandenabeele stock cock for sale on one of the trade stands. Graham purchased the cock and gave it to Peter as a gift. He mated it to one of his own hens and bred several youngsters from them, one of which was ‘Woodstock Gem’. She wasn’t raced as a young bird, but after five training tosses per season, ‘Woodstock Gem’ has had every race this season. The second bird clocked from Wincanton was ‘Woodstock Girl’ and she is a daughter of Peter’s 2025 Blandford Three Borders Federation winner, ‘Woodstock Lad’. He has won many top positions in the Club and Federation in his three year racing career, including 1st Federation Blandford and 4th Federation Honiton in the 2025 racing season. The dam of ‘Woodstock Lad’ is Peter’s champion stock hen, ‘Woodstock Producer’ and she has bred many winners for the Clements loft, including several Federation winners. His sire was Peter’s good round about racing cock, ‘47’ and he won 1st Isleworth club from Okehampton the week before the Blandford race in 2025. The Mitcham & Merton partnership of Ben and Mark Andrews put a wonderful performance from the Wincanton race, winning 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 11th, 17th, 22nd, 25th Federation. Brilliant pigeon racing!
The first ten in the Wincanton (2) Federation result were: 1) Peter Clements 1740: 2) Peter Clements 1739: 3) Jim Andrews & Son 1735: 4) Jim Andrews & Son 1734: 5) Jim Andrews & Son 1733: 6) Jim Andrews & Son 1732: 7) Holden & Pratt 1727: 8) Terry Goodsell 1714: 9) B. Rice 1711: 10) Mr & Mrs R. Pitchley 1711 This was race number six of the season and at this point the Mitcham & Merton club are leading for the ‘Federation Points Trophy’ with 27 points, with the Ashridge club being R/U on 21 points.
Peter Clement’s present racing loft is 20ft long, with open door trapping, three sections, two for the roundabout cocks and hen, and one for the young birds. He maintains the most important factor in good loft design is good light and ventilation. The lofts are cleaned out every day and he has never used deep litter on the loft floors. Like most other fanciers, Peter, used to race on the natural system, but now races on either widowhood or roundabout so as to race the good hens. He normal only keeps 12 pairs of racers and says he has had good results with hens and cocks at all distances. The racers are paired up on 8th January and they are trained according to their fitness, there is no set rule about this, it depends on their performance on the daily exercise around the loft. He use to break down in the racing season, but maintains this is not necessary, as their performances are as good, if not better, if they don’t go on the depurative mixture during the week. There is no real feeding system at the Isleworth loft with the racers being fed on a good ‘widowhood’ mixture, but Peter says, the most important factor is not to over feed. He likes to race every Saturday and enjoys short and long distance racing.
Peter Clements was born in Isleworth in 1950 and says on one else in the family was interested in pigeons at that time. He played around with and liked pigeons from a very young age and enjoyed catching and keeping stray racers. He took up the sport seriously at the age of 30 and his first pigeon came from Tubby Tate of Chiswick and then several Dordins from the late Isleworth ’ace’, Johnny Wills. Two local fanciers who helped Peter out in the early days were Mick and Ron Sotheron, both outstanding pigeon racers in the Isleworth area and Peter’s first club was the Bedfont SR club, where he began to win race prizes from the outset. Peter told me, ‘my first little loft was pretty basic and I raced on the natural system, with good success. Like most fanciers I made some mistakes, including over feeding and training, but managed to win plenty of positions from the inland and channel races’.
All Peter’s pigeons are bred down from some original stock birds obtained from his good friend Jimmy Carpenter, who now lives in St Austell in Cornwall. The premier breeder in the Clements loft is one of the original Jimmy Carpenter pigeons; ‘Woodstock Producer’ and she has bred many outstanding winners, including ‘Woodstock Lad’, winner of 1st Federation in the 2025 racing season. I’ve known Jim Carpenter since the early 1970’s when he lived in Chessington and we all raced the now disbanded Surbiton Flying Club. The month of November 2010 saw Peter Taylor and myself make the 240 mile drive down to Bodmin in Cornwall to judge the South West Show Racer Societies annual Duchy Open Show and one surprise we got on our arrival at Luxulyan Village Hall was seeing Surrey exile, Jimmy Carpenter there. Looking back over all those years, I remember Jimmy was a hard working painter and decorator and his family were his life, but enjoyed some good success with his pigeons. The SMT Combine sent 3,364 birds to Nantes in 1982 and the clear winner were Jim and Shirley Carpenter, who were racing in the Surbiton Flying Club at that time. Their winner, which lifted ‘The Checkers Cup’ in the Combine, was their good two year old red chequer hen, ‘Guinevere’ and she was bred from Hansenne and Cattrysse gift birds from his friend Ted Goodger of Staines. At that time Jimmy told me he had spent over seven years building up his loft of pigeons which had excelled from 1980 onwards. His loft was based on pigeons obtained from his father, Dick Brooker of Claygate, Ted Goodger of Staines and H. Ledbury of Wiltshire. The Goodger pigeons were Hansenne and Cattrysse, and the Ledbury pigeons were good honest birds blended by this great fancier over 50 years in the fancy. Jim recorded several outstanding positions from the longest old bird race, but in 1980 he recorded his best by winning 3rd SMT Combine Bergerac, the Combine’s Blue Riband event. Jim and Shirley’s Bergerac winner was a five year old blue cock named ‘Miggi’, which was bred from pigeons obtained from Jim’s dad and H. Ledbury. Here we are all those years later and Peter Clements is still winning the Federation with Jim’s pigeons! Peter says he doesn’t have any stock birds as such and likes everything to race, but during the breeding season the corn is changed to a ‘breeding’ mixture. He told me, at this time he has no need to bring in new bloodlines, but when has brought in new stock in the past he has gone for good racing performance bloodlines. When it comes to breeding, he aways pairs the best to the best and that has aways worked for him. He tries not to breed to close and like his birds to be quite tame. Peter told me, ‘I always feed heavy corn during the moult period and I’m aways looking for any problems with the moult, because this could be an indication of the birds health’. Peter normally breeds 20 youngster ever year, which he used to race to the perch, but these days he doesn’t race his babies and maintains this is the only way to try to keep them healthy. Although he adopted this unusual approach with his youngsters, they still come out and win as yearlings, as his racing results verify.
Premier racers in the Clements loft are: ‘Mick’s Choice’ winner of 1st club Blandford, 1st club Yelverton, 1st club Honiton, 1st club Blandford, 1st club Exeter, 2nd club Yeovil, 2nd club Honiton, plus other position including 12th Three Borders Federation: ‘Woodstock Expected’ winner of 1st club, 5th Three Borders Federation Kingsdown, 2nd club Yeovil, plus other positions: ‘Woodstock Lady’ winner of 1st club Yelverton, 1st club Yeovil, 2nd club Kingsdown, 2nd club Blandford, 2nd club Honiton, 4th club Kingsdown: ‘Woodstock Princess’ winner of 2018: 2nd club, 2nd Three Borders Federation Exeter (beaten by a loft mate), 3rd club Yeovil, 4th club Blandford: ‘Woodstock Leggy’ winner of 4th club, 4th Three Borders Federation Exeter (beaten by three loft mates), 1st club Yeovil, 1st club Blandford, 1st club Kingsdown, 2nd club Yeovil, 2nd club Kingsdown.
Peter is now retired from work and says he is lucky enough to have a wife who is great with the loft scraper! He used to love long distance pigeon racing, but now he likes racing up to 250 miles best and still has go at the longer events. He says there are no real secrets behind successful pigeon racing, just hard work and common sense. Keep the birds fit and health and if they are good pigeon, the rest will take care of itself! His proudest performances have been from Bergerac (458 miles), which he has won six times and on one occasion he recorded: 1st club, 1st Federation, 3rd SMT Combine (3,333 birds). He is also very happy about winning the first five positions in the Three Borders Federation from Exeter in the 2018 season. His most thrilling experience in his time in the sport was being nominated and winning an RPRA Award in 1994. Peter was nominated without his knowledge by the late Beat and Ernie Penn, secretary of the Isleworth club at that time and won the award. My aunty Beat was one of the nicest people I’ve ever met in the sport of pigeon racing and devoted her life to doing good for other pigeon fanciers! His advice to new starters in the sport is take your time and take heed of the advice from the best pigeon racers. Make sure your loft is dry and well ventilated. Peter says there are many premier fancier who live in the Isleworth area, including the late Brian Goodwin, Clarke Brothers and Ken Wise, but he thinks Bellchambers Brothers are the best, winning out of time for many years, including 1st open National Flying Club. He has no real interest in the eyesign theory and he likes to show his birds locally in the winter mouth, with some good success, including this year.
Paul Arnold of the Esher club is enjoying a great season and won the club this week from Wincanton, after winning the Federation from Weymouth the weekend previous. He had a crack at the British Barcelona Club Fougeres race and won 1st section G, 12th open from Fougeres with 2,807 competing and told me after the race, ‘this was my first outing with the BBC after joining last year to race the any age Guernsey race, which was subsequently cancelled. Basketing day was a long affair for me; seven hours in total, travelling there waiting for birds to go through then back home. Apparently they had their biggest attendance at Southampton for many years. I did think a few times, why am I doing this, then race day comes around, I win the section on my first outing and then you realise, that's why I did it! My first impressions of the BBC are that it is a very well run, efficient club, with a fantastic secretary. I have had several people tell me how efficient Clare Norman is and I can honestly say she is! Thank you Clare. I would also like to thank all those members who gave up their time on Thursday to mark all those birds. So my section winner, ‘The 52 Cock’, a blue cock, raced widowhood, having just his second channel race, after previously going to Guernsey in the Thames North Open race three weeks earlier, where he came well. As I’ve previously said, I had last year off from racing in order to rebuild my channel team and as you know Keith, I am a small team man, usually racing 12 cocks and sometimes a few hens, which sometimes makes it difficult to compete in these races, but there lies the challenge for me! And it is this that gives me the biggest buzz, racing against the best in the country with just a handful of birds. His sire is another son of my NFC Messac winner, ‘True Faith’ when paired to an inbred Spiderman hen, bred by my good friends Darren and John May. I must admit I was chuffed on Saturday when I was informed I had won the section, I had hoped to have been on a little earlier, but a lot of that mate is luck. If you remember last week luck was on my side when I won the Three Borders Federation on decimals, so there you have it’. Another great performance by the Paul Arnold loft!
That’s it for this week! Well done to Peter Clements on his great Federation win! If you win and want a write up in this space, contact me on telephone number: 07535 484584 or email me on:
TEXT & PHOTOS BY KEITH MOTT (www.keithmott.com)
