AN OPEN LETTER FROM JOHN CLEMENTS

International Racing Endurance Records into the UK

Dear Sirs

I’ve always been interested in two things – records and endurance events, so putting the two things together I am interested in endurance records. The pigeon endurance event is marathon distance racing but in pigeons we seem particularly lax in keeping records compared with other endurance activities such as  the Vendee Globe in the single-handed yacht race, the Tour de France in cycling and marathon running. They are all much better when it comes to publishing their history than we are. 

For instance a pigeon question that has been bugging me for quite a long time is to find out the top ten furthest distance pigeons that have homed into the UK by the second day from any International race.

I think this outright record belongs to Frank Kay of Bolton when he timed in from Perpignan at a distance of 798 miles on the second day. I could be wrong but if those fanciers who have timed in International pigeons over 750 miles by the second day could get in touch with me or if anyone else knows of someone who did it I would be pleased to compile a list so that this list could then be available for everyone to drool over. What I want is: the year, the event, the distance and the sex of the bird that did it. A photograph would be a tremendous bonus.

As an aside – I choose International racing simply because this type of long distance event (Internationals) is generally considered to be the most challenging type of racing. There can’t be many, if any, apart from Frank Kay but I am hopeful there may be some undiscovered gems out there that could at last be given acknowledgement by being included on a list of record International flights.

John Clements

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February 2013