“ON THE ROAD” WITH KEITH MOTT.
Three Borders Federation (Blandford Race 3).
The Three Borders Federation were at Blandford for the second young bird race of the season on the first weekend in August and the convoyer, Dom McCoy liberated the 702 birds at 07.00hrs, into a North / North West wind situation. Dom produced a very good race on a very hot day, with excellent returns for the members competing. It was certainly the Esher clubs day, with Paul Arnold winning 1st, 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th, 11th, 12th, 13th, 14th, 15th positions. Paul is enjoying a great season, with being his second Federation winner of the year and he won the Blandford race with his good natural blue hen, ‘The 232 Hen’. His first Federation winner from Weymouth, was his yearling widowhood dark chequer cock, ‘The 28 Cock’. Going back many years, I can remember Paul winning the Federation countless times and winning firsts in Combine, Classic and National races. He is a good worker in our sport and is certainly a ‘legend’ in the Surrey racing pigeon fraternity. The Federation result from Blandford was more or less dominated by two members with Stuart Emans of the Mitcham & Merton club taking ten positions, including 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th. Great pigeon racing by Paul and Stuart!
After the race I had a chat with Paul on the phone and he said, ‘It is good catching up this morning Keith, I’m just knocked up a batch of plaster and plaster waits for no man. Any way mate as promised the details of my Blandford winner are, she is a lovely apple bodied hen, named ‘The 232 Hen’ and her sire is a brother to my Messac National winner " True Faith " when paired with one of my 2024 latebreds. I took several late breds for stock off my very best retired racers that are getting old now. Two of these bred my old bird Weymouth Federation winner, ‘The 28 Cock’, so this turned out to be a very good idea.
‘The 232 Hen’ as we now call and her is a half-sister to one my best channel hens, by the same sire, who has won 3rd open and 33rd open BBC national and 5th open and 35th open BICC in just five channel races. This is the second young bird race and my young birds have been coming well and very well from Blandford! So far, both training and these two races I have not dropped a single bird, fingers crossed! So I must pay tribute to our convoyer Dom McCoy, ably assisted by our weather man and secretary Stuart Emans. Having done the weather man job myself for a few years in the past, working with Dom, I know just how hard these boys work to give us exceptional racing. A thing lost on a lot of people. All I will say to those who love to criticize, have a look around the other Federations around us and across the country, see the weekly horror stories of loses they sometimes get, then look what great racing you get from the Three Borders Federation!! Anyway Keith, this year so far has gone quite well, a few club wins, now a couple of Federation wins. I have also won: 3rd Thames North open race from Guernsey at the beginning of the season, 1st section 13th open Fougeres BBC National in my first ever race with the BBC, 3rd open BBC St Philbert and 5th open BICC Mesac, all with just a small team of pigeons mate. I have not been out of the four in the section in any race this season! My young bird team consists of 32 birds and the first two races have been a joy to watch them pile in from the races, with as I have mentioned 100% returns. Young bird racing is all about hard work and as you know mate I am moving house the end of the season, so I wanted to go out from our present address with a bang, having raced here for many years with outstanding success. I am working hard at our new house every and all day, so have little time with the pigeon, but have been training at five in the morning most days. I’m plastering walls this week, so I had better get back on that trow! I just hope I'm as successful with my pigeon racing at my new address’. Congratulation to Paul on his brilliant performance!
The first ten in the Blandford Federation result were: 1) Paul Arnold 1549: 2) Stuart Emans 15460: 3) Stuart Emans 1546: 4) Stuart Emans 1545: 5) Stuart Emans 1544: 6) Paul Arnold 1544: 7) Paul Arnold 1544: 8) Paul Arnold 151543: 9) Paul Arnold 1543: 10) Paul Arnold 1543. This was race number fifteen of the season and at this point the Mitcham & Merton club are leading for the ‘Federation Points Trophy’ with 67 points, with the Ashridge club being R/U on 56 points.
Paul was a self-employed plasterer all his working life and sometimes when he is very busy at work, his wife, Helen, and his then ten year old daughter, Charlotte, were an enormous help to him with the pigeons. He says, although they are not really interested in pigeons they will help out and do anything around the loft. He would be lost without them! Every year Paul gets many phone calls from fancier who are winning with his pigeons, in spite of not being a seller of many birds. It gives him a great sense of pride to produce so many winning pigeons for other fanciers, especially when he has only a small set up and keeps only a few birds. Paul loves middle distance channel racing up to 450 miles with the Classic and National and maintains he is no longer really interested in club racing. He told me his biggest thrill was in the early 1990’s when he realised how good his Staf Van Reet pigeons were and they were taking the first six positions in the club, and peppering the Federation result. When I asked Paul if he held any offices in the sport his reply was, ‘No none! Although I have held offices in the past, I am not the least bit interested in the politics of the sport and just want to enjoy my sport in my back garden’.
When Paul Arnold was in his Covid 19 self-isolation in the early part of 2020, he never dreamt that when he was finally let loose to race his successful team of pigeons, he would win a major National Flying Club race. Paul is a class act and has been one of the premier winning fanciers of the Surrey pigeon racing fraternity for many years. After having a good race and scoring: 16th and 27th open from the first NFC race from Fougeres, he sent a small team of five widowhood cocks to the second race from Messac (255 miles) and hit the ‘jackpot’. Paul clocked his good four year old blue cock, ‘True Faith’, in five hours six minutes to win 1st open National by nearly 30 ypm, with over 5,000 birds competing. Paul named his Messac National winner, ‘True Faith’, after a relative who had recently passed away and told me, that for day after the race was in a dream world, coming to terms with fact that he had won the National. ‘True Faith’ was bred from one of Paul’s Staf Van Reet cocks and a Gaston van de Wouwer hen from Derek Nichols. This champion cock recorded 1st section E (639 birds), 1st open (5,097 birds) NFC Messac (255 miles) and has been retired to the stock loft. On Paul’s build up to winning the NFC, he won in the Three Borders Federation: 3rd Federation Honiton (925 birds), 13th, 23rd Federation Newton Abbot (846 birds), plus 1st club Wincanton. Paul is a member of the Esher & District RPC and all the members, including me, were very proud of his great achievement in winning the National Flying Club.
Paul Arnold’s present loft is a converted brick built double garage and the building was converted in the winter of 2003 by Paul and his good friend Barry Jarvis. The conversion work took a lot of planning, but says he has got it virtually right and the air flow in the loft is excellent. He has always raced on the widowhood system, but for some seasons has raced what he calls a double widowhood, racing both cocks and hens. Paul tells me returned back to conventional widowhood for the 2009 racing season. The widowhood team is normally made up with 16 cocks and 16 hens which are mated to the stock cocks. The feeding is varied; depending on the conditions and Paul mixes his own corn so can vary from one week to the next. The widowhood racers are sometime shown their mates on marking night, depending on the type of race and most of the birds are expected to race from Bergerac (450 miles). He never repairs the racers for the longer races and says he has tried it in the past and it has always been a complete disaster. Although he repaired ‘Victor’ in 2011 to win the Combine from Bergerac, but this was a one off! On their return from the race the cocks get their hens for as little as ten minutes at the start of the season, but on really hard races they may stay together over night. The old birds will be given two or three training tosses at the start of the season, if in the weeks prior they are flying well around the loft and then after a couple of inland club races they are ready for racing out of France.
Paul was born in Wandsworth and being born in to a really big pigeon racing family became interested in the sport at a very young age. When he was a youngster in the 1970’s he raced with his father and brother in the Mitcham club, but was a very keen footballer and played most Saturdays and Sundays through the season. In the 1970’s Terry Goodsell dominated the Mitcham club and the young Paul always wanted to emulate him, and finally did in the 1990’s, winning everything at Federation and Combine level. After a break from the sport Paul returned in the late 1980’s and raced with his brother, Gordon, for a short time, before going it alone with a few late breds in 1989. Paul’s first club, which is the same one he races in today, is the South Downs in Epsom and his first loft was a brick structure at the bottom of the garden. His brother started him up with a nice kit of Louella / Verheyes and Paul won his very first race from Blandford with a thirteen week old blue chequer pied hen, which also recorded 5th Federation (4,500 birds). He maintains the Verheyes were good pigeons and they won a lot of races, but when he introduced the Staf Van Reet pigeon it was obvious that they were not in the same class. Since Paul says, ‘over the years I have found there are many fads and fallacies involved with pigeon racing, but I’ve always done my own thing, sometimes it’s been right and sometimes wrong, but I’ve always learnt from it’. Paul has raced on his own for over 20 years and has won it all! He has won the Federation many times through the years and lifted many Federation average trophies, including the London Federation O.B. Inland Average in 2006. His fantastic Staf Van Reet pigeons have excelled in Combine Channel race over the years and have won: 1st, 2nd, 3rd open Combine Messac (three hens), 1st open Combine Le Ferte Bernard and 1st open Combine Sennen Cove. When I asked Paul about his family of pigeon he said, ‘I’ve had the Staf Van Reets for about 19 years now and they really are fantastic pigeons to race, and as I’ve always stated they are so good they make me look good. They are outstanding in any weather and any wind, but are especially good in head winds and, on hard days. I’ve tried many other families of pigeons against them in the past few years and none have come close to their excellent performances. I have been very lucky to own several ‘once in a life time pigeons’, but the two supreme pigeons are the base of my loft, in the form of the two Staf Van Reet Champions ‘Santa Vosse’ and ‘The Governor’. Champion ‘Santa Vosse’ is responsible for literally hundreds of winners all over the world, including many multiple winners of 15 up to 18 times 1st club. ‘The Governor’ is responsible for countless winners, including at least 80 Federation, Combine, Amalgamation and National winner’. A wonderful family of Staf Van Reet pigeons!
Stuart Emans lives in Sutton and for his profession he is a fireman. Stuart is our very hard working Federation secretary and he is one of our best, being the ‘Federation Champion’ in the 2024 and 2025 racing seasons. He started up in the pigeon racing sport in 2008 and has won the Federation many time through the years, the highlight was winning 1st Three Borders Federation, 2nd Combine Bergerac and winning the Federation ‘Channel Averages’. Because of family and work commitments he had to pack up his pigeons for five year and restarted up in 2023 with young birds from his good friends Gary Young and Gerald Delaney. The 2024 season had seen Stuart race those yearlings with outstanding success. He pairs up in in February and races his fourteen cocks and seven hens on the roundabout system. His smart 24ft loft is set up for ETS trapping and is made up of a section for the old cocks, another for the young birds and the roundabout hens are housed in an aviary. He is not interested in fancy pedigrees or eye sign when selecting breeding pigeons and maintains the basket is the only way to find out if a pigeon is any good or not. Stuart gives his birds about ten training tosses up to 27 miles before the first race and then they get two exercise sessions every day around the loft once racing starts. All the races are fed on Stuart’s own widowhood mixture, which he makes up himself and the racers are never broke down.
That’s it for this week! Congratulations to Paul Arnold on his second Federation win, it was a great performance! I can be contacted with any pigeon comment on telephone number: 07535 484584 or email
TEXT & PHOTOS BY KEITH MOTT (www.keithmott.com)
