Midlands National Young Bird Coutances:
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Tony Whitehouse and ‘The Rutland Rocket’ make a hard race look easy.
Tony Whitehouse will soon be stepping forward to collect his latest awards after winning 1st National once again.
Everyone who entered the 3,800 or so birds for the final race of the MNFC calendar would or should have been aware that the birds were in for a tough race with both an unsettled picture and Northerly breezes forecast. This definitely is a race controller’s nightmare. When the main race birds where held over whilst the One Loft race over in Carentan were sent on their way on the Saturday eyebrows were raised but though the distances are similar the truth of the matter is that they are nearly 40 miles apart with Coutances being on the West side of the peninsula whilst Carentan is more centrally located. In the morning the sun was out in Carentan but at Coutances it was raining!
Monday morning the weather was much better in France and over the channel and the weather men gave the thumbs up. What was not forecast until after the strings were cut and the convoy on it’s way at 8.30am was the rain that resulted over much of the Northern half of the country during the afternoon. This greatly hindered the Northern sections and for this they have my sympathy because cross channel racing is tough enough in North winds without rain throwing in it’s tu’penneth! A number of cynics accuse me of making excuses but I am an active fancier and often have my own birds in the race so the truth is I try and explain the actual facts of the matter. I don’t simply ignore the problems unlike others of the past may have done as I believe that this is both an insult to the reader’s intelligence and secondly poor reporting.
For some reason that I’m not too sure of the reason for, the more Westerly loft locations saw the provisional race leaders. As is the norm I will only talk about the provisional race winner in this initial short report. The bird which is described as his ‘little beauty’ by his owner Tony Whitehouse of Hateley Heath is a Blue W/F cock bird which records a velocity of 1199 some 35 yards in clear of the second bird on the attached leaderboard. Tony is in fact no stranger to tasting success as in 2014 he also won the MNFC’s Vire race. I will quote Tony’s own words here ‘’I have named my bird ‘Rutland Rocket’ because if ever a bird came to win he did as he raced in like a bat out of hell and gave me the best trap that I’ve had in 42 years’’. I will discuss the bird’s pedigree and other things that will be of great interest to fanciers who both enjoy racing young birds and have suffered health problems with their babies. For those that are eager to read more I’m informed that there are details of the ‘Rocket’s’ breeding on the Syndicate Lofts Website. Tony tells me that he got 15 out of his 29 bird entry home on the first day. Which considering the wind direction was a good return for youngsters many of which would be on their ‘maiden’ journey back from France. I know that I am repeating myself but the late great George Litherland used to say when entering young ones over the channel for the first time to ‘kiss each one good bye as it is put in the basket and consider each one on its return as a bonus’. Yes the channel can be a ‘cakewalk’ when the winds and weather conditions are favourable but a real challenge when the opposite conditions apply.
I will leave you to study the attached leaderboard and as ever please send your details if you are in the top four of your own section to my email address which is once again - This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Mike Lakin