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“ON THE ROAD” WITH KEITH MOTT - 26-10-23

“ON THE ROAD” WITH KEITH MOTT.

‘Show Racer World’ – Number 1.

The beginning of November marks the start of the current 2023 show season and I must say I was always looking forward to visiting all the major shows, every winter. Although I love long distance racing pigeons, many of my racing friends can’t understand my passion for showing pigeons. I suppose I’m a bit of a frustrated show man at heart! I think breeding pigeons for type and winning with them at a Classic show is as much an art as breeding outstanding racers, and winning a National race. I derive as much pleasure out of seeing a Best in Show winner at the National shows, as I do a National race winning pigeon, but I think I’m one of the lucky ones, as I can enjoy both sides of our great sport. Although I’m mostly known for the racing side of the sport, I have a big involvement in the Show Racers scene and have judged at all the Classic and National shows through the years, which I have really enjoyed. I have made many good and close friends in the Show Racer world over the years, through my judging at National and Society shows, and over the next few months we are going to feature some of the premier Show Racer lofts in our new ‘Show Racer World’ series of articles. I hope my readers enjoy this series of articles, as I’m looking forward to writing them!

The winter shows.

Although I was a keen pigeon racer, I also loved showing my birds and I couldn’t turn off in

September, as soon as we finished racing, I switched into show mode! If I had a big garden and not the postage stamp we have now, I would defiantly have a second loft for Show Racers as well as my long distance racing team. I have won hundreds of prizes and trophies through the years showing my birds, and have won at all the National Shows. I’m well sort after ever winter as a judge, which is something I enjoy very much and travels hundreds of miles carrying out the duty, and have judged at most of the big Show Racer Society Open Shows countless times, five times at the BHW Blackpool Show, twice at the RP Old Comrades Show at the NEC Birmingham, four times at the Duchy Show in Cornwall and four times at the NEHU Peterlee / South Shields Show in Newcastle.

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I’m very proud to say I’ve been associated with the RPRA Southern Region Show for many years and derived great pleasure judging at this great annual show through the years. This great event is one of my favourite one day shows and I have attended the show most years, since it started at Ascot Racecourse over 30 years ago, and in recent seasons have booked the judges for my good friend and ex-show secretary, Ron Lacey. Years ago I used to show and won many firsts with my racing pigeons, which I always considered a good achievement, with the ‘red hot’ competition at the Region show. The RPRA Southern Region Show was held at the Hazlemere Community Centre, near High Wycombe. In recent years the Community Centre has proved to be a first class venue for this major event, having two large halls for the show and charity pigeon auction. My good friend, Ron Lacey, former President of the R.P.R.A. Southern Region, ran the show for many years and prior to that Val and Tony Viccars were the show secretaries. I have attended the show since it started and through the years have enjoyed competing and judging.  After Ascot the show moved briefly into Basingstoke and then went to Slough for ten years, being run by the late, great Bob Arnold. I always remember Bob telling me that he had been in pigeons all his life, being taken tenderly into a pigeon loft at the age of ten days old, by his father, in 1920. Bob was a wonderful man and put a lot of hard work into the Southern Region Show through his many years as show secretary. The show is now in the capable hands of Peter Gretton.

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I have travelled down to the wonderful county of Cornwall to judge the Duchy Show four times and have judged BIS a couple of times. What a brilliant show it is and going to wonderful Cornwall made it a double pleasure. Originally the Duchy Show was put on for many years by the Duchy Racing Pigeon Club and when it disbanded about seven years ago the South West Show Racer Society took it over, and this year’s event is their tenth open show. The SWSRS has 35 members with their lofts in mostly Devon and Cornwall, with a couple of members living in South Wales. The Society holds five shows each season, three club events and two open shows, one in November and the other in December. The competition in the Society is very keen and the members do very well at all the National and Classic shows throughout the UK. The Societies chairman, John Robilliard, told me, a few years ago the club out grew their old HQ at a local hospital site and managed to secure the Luxulyan Village Hall, which is a brilliant venue to stage big pigeon shows, with a nice well-lit hall and good catering and parking facilities. The hard working secretary is, Liz Watts, who has her loft in Camborne and the President is Ken Hearn. The Society had some really bad luck recently when they lost a lot of their equipment in a fire, including all their tables and trestles. They are having fund raising events to raise money to replace their lost equipment, including small pigeon auctions at the club shows.

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The annual NEHU show was started nearly 100 years ago and was held at the Peterlee Leisure Centre for over 20 years. The centre was a very good venue for a major show and when I last attended the Peterlee event ten years ago the halls were packed with well over 2,000 visitors. The show was run for many years by former NEHU secretary, Alfie Rothwell, and then show manager, Colin Allison of Redcar. This wonderful show has now out grown the Peterlee Leisure Centre and in the last ten years has been staged at a new perfect venue named the Temple Park Centre in South Shields. In recent seasons the show has been run by the current NEHU secretary, David Power, and I must say, David has being doing a wonderful job in pushing this show to even greater things in the last few years. At that time Show Manager was Allen Hall, who with the assistance of NEHU President, Gordon Burten, ran the event like clockwork! Fanciers showing at South Shields are competing for a wonderful array of NEHU Trophies and there is an auction of top class pigeons, with most of the proceeds going to the British Fanciers Medical Research. I had previously judged at Peterlee three times, Best in Show on one occasion and then had the pleasure of being asked to travel to the North East of England to judge Best in Show at the 2011 South Shields event. David Power sent me the letter, kindly inviting me and I must say, I was doubly keen to take him up on his invitation, as I had tasted the atmosphere of this brilliant one-day event three times before, having previously first judged in 1998, when Alfie Rothwell was the Secretary of the Union. The month of November saw Bobby Besant and myself make the 670 mile round trip drive up to South Shields, to judge at the NEHU Show, which must be rated as one of the best one day shows on the British show Calendar.

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I defiantly think there is a massive decline in ‘bread and butter’ showing at local club level and to see this in recent years is very upsetting. For me true exhibiting of Racing Pigeons and Show Racers is when they are handled and in our Surrey area, most of the club and open shows are through the wires. Fanciers these days seem to like to grab their birds out of the loft, with no preparation, and put them in the pen to be judged through the wires. They almost seem to be frightened to have them handled and at our local show they seem to prefer fancy colours classes. When I’m showing a lot of time is spent in preparing my pigeons for the pen and we have won the local ‘Open Show Points’ cups about 18 times, but I don’t show at local events anymore, because of the lack of quality competition. I think the whole thing comes down to ‘pounds, shillings and pence’ and the people who run the club shows are looking to make money for the club, which can’t be wrong, but they are not really interested in quality pigeon showing, the like of which we enjoyed years ago. I think it is a bigger achievement to win a handled class competing against 25 birds, than it is winning a through the wire class against 50 entries! The National show scene in the UK is still brilliant and getting better every year, and that’s where you have to exhibit to get the quality competition these days. Look at the great old RPRA Southern Region Show, still going after all these years and even bigger and better this year! I think the fancy should be very proud of our mother show, the British Homing World Blackpool ‘Show of the Year’, a wonderful spectacle and raising thousands of pounds for charity every January. I get my buzz at the Nationals events these days and very rarely attend the local club shows, only on the odd occasion to judge handling classes.

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Back in October 2013 I received a letter from the RPRA, inviting me to judge at the British Homing World ‘Show of the Year’, Blackpool  in January 2014 and it goes without saying I was delighted to accept, as I have always loved doing the job and consider it a great honour to be asked. This was my third time judging at the premier show in the UK and the last time I judged was in 2007 when the BBC sent a film crew to the Winter Gardens to film me and Peter Taylor for the ‘Inside Out’ programme. I then received a phone call in December 2013 from the Blackpool Show committee inviting me to take on the premier judging job in the show world, to judge the specials and Blackpool Show ‘Best in Show’. I have been judging at top National and Show Society shows for 45 years and to judge ‘Best in Show’ at Blackpool was the crowning glory of all those years doing the job. I was highly delighted and accepted the invitation immediately. My ol’ mate, Peter Taylor, has travelled all over the UK as my steward for many years, but in recent times has not travelled because of his ‘dodgy’ leg, but I managed to get him to Blackpool to steward for me, on this great occasion. We knew the Friday of the show was going to be a hard day, with the 250 mile drive up to the Hilton Hotel in Blackpool, then attend the RPRA dinner that evening and after that the late night judging in the Winter Gardens, so we left Claygate early that morning. After a good run up to the North West, we arrived at the Hilton Hotel on the North Promenade that afternoon in fine weather  and managed to get a couple of hours rest in our rooms before we attend the RPRA ‘do’ in the evening. The dinner was a very grand event held in the hotel and was attended by several premier pigeon parties from Europe and Mr. & Mrs. Eddie Collett, the Lord Mayor of Blackpool. It was nice to meet up with some ol’ friends at the dinner, including Steve Richards and Helen Edwards of the BHW, John and Pamela Robilliard and former RPRA General Manager, Peter Bryant, there with his wife Glenys. John Robilliard introduced me to David Trippett, the Blackpool Show committee chairman and David was to take Peter and I to the Winter Gardens in a taxicab after the main judging had finished, to do our final judging job.

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It was late when we arrived at the Winter Gardens, just before 23.00hrs I think, and we were greeted by chief steward, Dora Pounder, and what a nice lady she was! Dora has been doing the job at the Blackpool Show for many years and was so efficient, directing us to all the pen numbers to sort out the show specials. I spent quite some time judging the 29 class winner and needless to say I went through them with a fine tooth comb! From the outset of judging there was only one winner of Best in Show, a wonderful Show Racer red hen and she was medium appled bodied, with good balance and brilliant feather quality. I loved the hen as soon as I picked her out of Pen 4 and from then on she was the one the others had to beat! A beautiful mealy was her runner up, but I found a major fault in her on her second handling and Reserve Best in Show went to a stunning looking Show Racer blue chequer hen. I gave Best Racer to a handsome pencil blue pied cock and although it wasn’t confirmed, I was told it might have won at the Blackpool Show in 2013. It was a great judging session to remember and we finished just before 01.00hrs, after which we jump in a taxi and went back to the Hilton Hotel. It was a very long day and I finally got to bed just after 02.00hrs! We got up on Saturday morning and after breakfast I was keen to get down to the Winter Gardens to see who owned the red hen and it was finally confirmed that John Robilliard owned that wonderful Show Racer and had won his second Best in Show at the BHW Blackpool Show. I was so delighted to hear that great news as John has given a life time’s work to our sport and deserve every success he has with his wonderful Show Racers. Talking to John after the event, he said, the hen is now called ‘Rocquaine Queen’ and she won as a young bird, and won a first at the Duchy Show in November 2013. She was bred from a pair of stock birds that John obtained at the Ken Jeffery of St Ives dispersal sale. That Blackpool Show in 2014 and judging ‘Best In Show’ was my greatest judging experience!

John & Alice Bell of Catrine in Scotland.

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In spite of the Covid and Bird Flu problems looming over the 2022 show, there was only one thing guaranteed when the fanciers travelled to Blackpool for the 50th British Homing World ‘Show of the Year’ was that they would have a great time! Although it was a great success and good fun, the 2021 live event had to be cancelled and had to go ‘on line’ because of the Covid restrictions. Well done to the Blackpool Show committee on making the pandemic restriction workable for our favourite show this year and getting the birds back in the pens for the 50th anniversary event. With the show being staged in the North West of England in January, some years the weather is a bit cold and wet, but this year’s show weekend was treated to blue skies and wall to wall sunshine, which made this year’s event even more special. Thousands of fanciers made the drive up to Blackpool in mid-January for the main event of the Show Racer calendar, the British Homing World ‘Show of the Year’. Everyone anticipates and looks forward to this wonderful weekend in Blackpool, not only for their annual fill of ‘pigeon fun’, but mostly to meet up with good pigeon friends.

The 2022 event attacked a show entry of 2,000 birds and ‘Supreme Champion’ and “Best in Show’ was won by John and Alice Bell of Catrine in Scotland. John tells me, this is the third time they have won the double at Blackpool, winning ‘Best in Show’ three times and ‘Supreme Champion’ a record seven times. They have had five open shows this season, including the BHW Blackpool Show and have won ‘Best in Show’ three times, plus ‘Best Show Racer’. Well done to John and Alice, a brilliant performance! Their seventh Blackpool ‘Supreme Champion’ was their wonderful two year old mosaic hen; ‘Gracie’ and she previously won ‘Best in Show’ at the RPRA Southern Region Show in High Wycombe last November. John & Alice travelled the 400 miles from Ayrshire for the High Wycombe Show and won six classes, ‘Best in Show’, ‘Best Opposite Sex’, ‘Best Show Racer’ and ‘Best Points’. A wonderful performance by the partners and this year’s Southern Region ‘Best in Show’ is their fourth in recent years. The ‘Best in Show’ winner, now named ‘Gracie’, was their yearling mosaic hen competing in her first show ever and she is a daughter of ‘Mervanic’, the winner of ‘Best in Show’ RPRA Southern Region Show for Nicole Bell in 2016. Now the wonderful ‘Gracie’ has gone on and become the ‘Supreme Champion’ at the greatest show in the pigeon sport, the BHW Blackpool Show! John and Alice won ‘Best in Show’ at this year’s Blackpool event with their good four year old mosaic heh, ‘Alice’s Dream Girl’ and she is a full sister to ‘Gracie’. What a fantastic family of Show Racers!

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John and Alice have two 24ft x 8ft lofts, which have a nice 3ft wire flight running along the front so the birds can get out in the weather and bath, and these are cleaned out by Alice twice a day. John works long hours and says a lot of loft management is down to his partner, which includes cleaning out the lofts as many times as ten times a day on the build up to big shows. He maintains this cleaning out is very important as the birds don’t have to be lifted and pulled about to clean their feet on basketing for the shows. Alice told me that if the bird’s feet are not cleaned on basketing day they look nice and powdery and not an unnatural pink. The birds are bathed at the beginning of the week and no litter is used on the loft floors. John mixes his own corn and this has a big maple pea content, and the birds are never fed condition seed. The pigeons are never fed maize prior the going to show, as Alice maintains it makes the candidates loose and messy in the pen. The twelve pairs of birds are mated up in late February as the partners like to enter two open Society shows which are after the Blackpool show at the back end of January. No stock birds are kept as all birds are shown and about 60 young birds are bred each, which are brought down to about twelve just before the show season begins. John told me, ‘I enjoy judging and have no favourite colour, when judging or in my own loft. I just love good quality Show Racers, whatever their colour! Showing is very hard work and to get a team ready for a big National event it can take up to a month to get them right. Our best ever Show Racer is the Darren Gibbons blue chequer cock and although we don’t keep stock birds, he is our main breeder, being the sire of many winners. I’ve lost count of the many open shows he has won and he has also won several times at the RP ‘Old Comrades’ Show and the BHW Blackpool Show. I would like to finish this article by saying how important Alice’s hard work is to our good success with our Show Racers. She is a wonderful pigeon fancier’. John & Alice Bell own one of the top Show Racer lofts in the UK at this time.

John and Alice Bell enjoyed yet another great show season in 2018 and kicked off with a ‘Best in Show’ with 641 birds entered at the NEHU Show in South Shield. The partners had a 340 mile round trip to this event and won BIS with a mosaic cock, which qualified for the ‘Supreme Champion’ class at the 2019 BHW Blackpool show. The day after the NEHU Show, John and Alice had another long drive down to the Midlands to win ‘Best in Show’ at the Black Country BSRF Show and the winner was the Mervin Hosking mosaic cock, which previously won BIS at the RPRA Southern Region Show for Nicole Bell. A brilliant weekend! John and Alice next show was the Clydesdale Open Show, where they won ‘Best in Show’ with a yearling blue chequer cock and with 532 birds entered, he also qualified for the ‘Suprema Champion’ class at the BHW Blackpool Show. This cock went on to win ‘Supreme Champion’ Show Racer at the 2019 BHW Blackpool Show. The day after the Clydesdale Show the partners made the 360 mile drive to Skipton in Yorkshire for the BSRF Open Show, to win ‘Best in Show’ with another Blue Chequer Cock. The next weekend they made the 800 mile drive to High Wycombe for the RPRA Southern Region Show and won ‘Best in Show’, with 474 birds competing. I judged the specials at the Southern Region Show that day and picked out a wonderful yearling Show Racer blue chequer to win ‘Best in Show’ and the hen, now named ‘Dottie’, was owned John and Alice Bell of Catrine in Ayrshire. ‘Dottie’ won her class at the BHW Blackpool Show in January 2018 and then went on to win, ‘Best YB in Show’, ‘Best Hen in Show’, ‘Best Opposite Sex Show Racer’ and ‘Best Opposite Sex’ over all with over 2,000 birds competing. Her dam, another beautiful blue chequer hen, won her class on the day at the RPRA Southern Region Show and was ‘Best in Show’ at the Region Show in 2017. John and Alice also won ‘Best Racer in Show’ with beautiful six year old blue chequer pied hen and she had previously won ‘Best in Show’ at the Kingdom of Fife open show (450 birds), and then won ‘Best Racer in Show’ at the Kingdom of Fife in 2017. Talking to John at the Region Show he told me, he had entered eight classes on the day and won six firsts. The following weekend they made the 150 mile round trip to Fife for the Kingdom Open Show (510 birds) and won ‘Best in Show’ with young blue chequer hen, which was a full sister to Southern Region Show winner, ‘Dottie’. John and Alice travelled the length and breadth of the country to compete with their wonderful team of Show Racers and won six times ‘Best in Show’ and had four birds qualify for the ‘Supreme Champion’ class at 2019 BHW Blackpool Show. A wonderful performance!

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Thousands of fanciers made the drive up to Blackpool in mid-January 2018 for the main event of the Show Racer calendar, the 46th British Homing World ‘Show of the Year’. John and Alice Bell won ‘Supreme Champion’ at the Blackpool Show for a record sixth time. There winning pigeon was a wonderful sliver blue hen, now named ‘Mary’s Dream Supreme’ after John’s late mother, Mary and she won Best in Show at the Kingdom of Fife Show (506 birds) to qualify for her place al Blackpool. The Bell show loft has had tremendous success at the Blackpool Show over the years winning: ‘Supreme Champion’ six times, including winning it over the last three years on the trot, Reserve ‘Supreme Champion’ five times, ‘Best in Show’ twice and Reserve ‘Best in Show’ twice. ‘Mary’s Dream Supreme’ is a half-sister to ‘Bell’s Young Supreme’, the Blackpool ‘Supreme Champion’ in 2016. A fantastic achievement! I had a conversation with John after the Blackpool show and he told me that they had a bad start to the current show season, with Alice going in and out of hospital over the period of the first three major shows, but once she got back in to her roll of the pigeon management they won BIS at the RPRA Southern Region Show (six firsts), BIS at the Kingdom of Fife Show (six firsts) and BIS at the Black Country Show (two firsts). John and Alice had two class winners at the Blackpool Show, with a young blue chequer hen winning: Best Hen, Best Young Bird, Reserve ‘Best in Show’ and the loft won ‘Fancier Gaining Best Points’.

Best in Show over all at Blackpool in 2017 was won by a yearling Show Racer mealy cock owned by John and Alice Bell and when I spoke to John at the event on Saturday morning he said, that the partners were thrill to win Best in Show at Blackpool for the second time. The handsome cock named, ‘Anniversary Supreme’ is a Show Racer champion in the truest sense of the word, also going on to win ‘Supreme Champion’ of the Blackpool Show in 2017. This wonderful Scottish partnership were also runner up in the ‘Supreme Champion’ class with a full brother to their good two year old blue chequer cock, ‘Bell’s Young Supreme’, the winner of ‘Supreme Champion’ at the BHW Blackpool Show in 2016. The sire of these two champion cocks was ‘Bell’s Supreme’ and he was also in the ‘Supreme Champion’ class this time at eight years of age, and he won BIS (800 birds) at the SHU Show in 2016 and 2017. John tells me the partners have won ‘Supreme Champion’ at the BHW Blackpool Show five times and thinks it is a record. A fantastic achievement! John and Alice Bell always have great success where ever they compete and before their 2017 Blackpool Show success, they also had a brilliant 2016 Blackpool Show winning four first, several trophies and ‘Supreme Champion’. The Bell partnership started showing at Blackpool in 2003 and have won ‘Supreme Champion’ an amazing six times and have been runner up five times! This Blackpool success finished off a wonderful 2015/16 show season for them, when they had won several premier shows. That season’s ‘Supreme Champion’ was their good yearling blue chequer cock, ‘Bell’s Young Supreme’ and to qualify he won BIS at the RPRA Southern Region Show in November. I judged four Show Racer classes at the Region Show and John and Alice won three of them, with ‘Bell’s Young Supreme’ being one of those winners. This wonderful cock is a son of, ‘Bell’s Supreme’ the 2011 Blackpool ‘Supreme Champion’ winner and he in turn is a brother to, ‘Wild One’, the 2007 Blackpool ‘Supreme Champion’. What a fantastic family of Show Racers! The 2015/16 show season saw John and Alice enter seven open shows prior to the Blackpool show and they won six of them, including: Shildon Open Show, NEHU Open Show, Shildon BSRF Open Show, RPRA Southern Region Show, Clydesdale Open Show and SHU Open Show.

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John finished with racing pigeons and concentrated solely on Show Racers in the 2006 season and won the Hurlford open show, recording his first Best in Show with his dark chequer cock, ‘Wild One’, bred from his ‘Old Silver Hen’. The following January this wonderful looking cock went to the BHW ‘Show of the Year’ at Blackpool and won ‘Supreme Champion’. Alice told me, this was the best day of their Show Racer life, to win the Supreme prize on their first attempt. It was a dream comes true! The Bell partners had three open show wins in the 2007 season, four more in 2008 and went on to win Reserve ‘Supreme Champion’ in 2009. In 2010 John and Alice had three major open show wins and so went to Blackpool with three birds in the Supreme Champion class. On entering the Winter Gardens on the Saturday morning they were amazed to see that their yearling Blue Chequer Cock had won his class and Best in Show, so was their fourth candidate in the Supreme Champion class. This cock’s nest mate won Supreme Champion and he was BIS, Reserve Supreme Champion. John told me he didn’t think this had ever been achieved before, with a nest pair winning the two premier prizes at Blackpool on the same weekend. Three of his Blackpool ‘Supreme Champions’ cocks were bred from a seven year old blue chequer cock bred by Darren Gibbons and he said, ‘it goes to prove that old pigeons can still breed champions’. John and Alice enjoyed a very successful 2011 show season, winning four open shows and qualified for the ‘Supreme Champion’ class at Blackpool in January 2012. With a lot of hard work this family of winning Show Racer has been formed from four pairs of original stock birds and the Bell partners told me it is well worth the effort when you win at the very top level with your own family of birds!

I asked John how he started up in pigeons and he told me, ‘I started with racing pigeons in 1974, at the age of nine and my first birds came from local fanciers, Eric Wilson of Mauchline who gave me two cocks and Sonny Mathieson who gave me two hens to mate to them. A year or so before that a friend of mine got some pigeons and I got hooked on them when I visited his garden. My parents agreed to allow me to keep some birds and with no experience I raced the whole young bird programme in 1975. I won my first race the following season and scored at the mighty Scottish National race from Rennes (552 miles), and I must say it was a great feeling! To breed and race birds that can race from France to Catrine, Ayrshire in the west of Scotland is a great buzz, as it is a very hard place to race pigeons too’.

John flew his birds until the 2000 season when sadly his friend and mentor, Louis Campbell, passed away. He was always keen on showing his racing pigeons and took then to events all over Scotland, where he was very successful in local and open shows. The Bell loft had four racing pigeons that had won open shows in the same year with over 500 birds competing, at that time, and qualified for the Supreme Champion of Great Britain class at Blackpool and won Reserve that year. Whenever he went to the big National shows he would spend long periods of time looking at the Show Racer and thought how great they looked. Alice used to go with John to the big shows and she also took a liking the wonderful looking show birds, so they both decided to get a few and give proper showing a go. The first Show Racers were brought in, in 2002 and quality specimens proved very difficult to obtain. He was lucky to know, Raymond Murphy of Cambuslang in Glasgow, who was a very good showman who was going out of the sport, and was having a clearance sale. John visited Raymond’s loft and purchased a five year old silver hen and her son, which was a three year old silver blue cock, both being top quality. Other birds were obtained including a young blue chequer cock from Darren Gibbons of Grimsby. In the 2002 season the ‘Old Silver Hen’ won three big open shows and her son, the silver blue cock, won two classes at open events. John and Alice went to the RP ‘Old Comrades’ where the young chequer cock won his class and went on to win the Best Young Bird at the Scottish East Region Society Show, then went forward to Blackpool to represent the Society in the BSRF class. The 2003 season saw more good success with several open show wins with racing and show birds. John told me that Alice was very instrumental in the success as she spent a lot of time with the birds and made them very tame. They responded really well to her and sit on her head and feed from her hand. John maintains making her a full pigeon partner was one of the best things he ever did, as she manages the loft when he is working, cleaning out and feeding the birds.

John told me his best show racer is his old dark chequer hen, ‘Alice’s Celtic Lass’ and she has won many premier positions including: the Hurlford Open Show,  the Kingdom of Fife Open Show and the North Eastern Open Show, with over 450 birds entered. The beautiful hen has been a class winner at many open shows, even in 2014 at the age of seven, but she has been a champion in the stock section, breeding champions with different cocks each year. In the 2009 season she bread a nest pair of chequer cocks, one of them won Best in Show at the BHW Blackpool Show in 2011 and he also went on to be reserve ‘Supreme Champion’  at the same show, being beaten by his brother. The chequer cock’s nest brother won Best in Show at the North Eastern Open Show in 2010 and then won most consistent bird Scottish East Region Show Racers Society 2010 and the went to Blackpool, winning ‘Supreme Champion’ in 2011 and beating his nest mate. John said, ‘I don't think this has ever been done at Blackpool by a nest pair before. ‘Alice’s Celtic Lass’ also bread a chequer hen in 2011 and she won the Kingdom Open Show, and then went into the ‘Supreme Champion’ class at BHW Blackpool Show. The next year this hen went to Blackpool and won the Inter Society Yearly Hen Class and then went on to win reserve Best in Show. This great hen then went on to other top cards at the Blackpool Show. She bred a chequer cock in 2012 that won ‘Supreme Champion’ at the East Region Show Racer Society Show in 2013. He went on to win five firsts in the Society and was the most consistent bird award, and represented Scottish East Region in British SR Federation class at Blackpool in 2015. The champion chequer hen, ‘Alice’s Celtic Lass’, also bread a chequer cock in 2013 which won Best in Show at the North Eastern Open Show, then went into ‘Supreme Champion’ this year. As you can see she has bred champions each year with different cocks each time. Her father was a 2002 bird, with her mother being bred in 1997, so as you can see old birds can still breed champions Show Racers. ‘Alice’s Celtic Lass’ father was five years old and her mother was ten years old when I bred her and I hope she lasts as long as her mother did and still breeds champions’.

A little walk down ‘Memory Lane’ this week to start our new ‘Show Racer World’ series of articles! I can be contacted on telephone number: 01372 463480 or email me on This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

TEXT & PHOTOS BY KEITH MOTT (www.keithmott.com)