“ON THE ROAD” WITH KEITH MOTT.
Three Borders Federation (Honiton Race 4).
The Three Borders Federation held its fourth Honiton race on the last weekend in June and Dom McCoy, the Federation convoyer, liberated the birds at 06.00hrs in to a light variable wind situation. On the day of the Honiton race Dom sent through some smashing photos on WhatsApp of the liberation site and the sky was almost cloudless with bright sun shine. He reported the convoy cleared the Honiton liberation site in good time. Members enjoyed a great steady race and Stuart Emans of the Mitcham & Merton club won 1st Federation Honiton, recording his second Federation winner of the season, previously winning from Okehampton. Stuart’s Honiton Federation winner was his good yearling widowhood blue chequer cock, ‘Beau 022’, named after his oldest grandson. The sire was bred Gary Young and originated from Gert Heylen of Belgium. The dam of ‘Beau 022’ is a Tom Shaw Verheye and is the dam nine 1st Federation winners. ‘Beau 022’ is having a brilliant 2024 season winning, 1st club, 1st Federation Honiton, 1st club, 10th Federation Wincanton and 2nd club, 23rd Federation Wadebridge. I spoke to Stuart Emans after the Honiton race and he told me, ‘I’m really pleased to win the Three Borders Federation twice this season. On the morning of the Honiton race I made my usual phone call to my good friend Dave ‘Topper’ Taylor for his opinion on what time to expect the birds home. Dave is a very consistent with his predictions and said I needed one at around 2 hours 35 minutes. So I was very excited when I spotted my first pigeon racing home and he folded up ,to hit the landing board with the time of 2 hours 33 minutes. I then had a long wait to see how I got on at club and then waiting for the other club results to come in. Winning the Three Borders Federation twice this season is a great achievement for me as the Federation has so many top class fanciers in its membership. I would just like to thank our club secretary at the Mitcham & Merton, Dave Lebby, for all his hard work running our club and a big shout out to Dominic McCoy our Federation convoyer for all his great work. Finally thanks to everyone that took the time to call and message me their congratulation’. Brilliant Pigeon Racing! Peter Williams of the Richmond club won 2nd Federation Honiton. Peter has been a very successful pigeon racer for many years, long distance and sprint, and has been a good worker for the Richmond club over those years. Well done Peter!
The first ten in the Honiton (4) Federation result were: 1) Stuart Emans 1536: 2) Peter Williams 1532: 3) Graham Evans 1529: 4) Graham Evans 1528: 5) Terry Goodsell 1528: 6) Steve Oliver 1626: 7) Terry Goodsell 1329: 8) J. Andrews & son 1517 : 9) Terry Goodsell 1511: 10) J. Andrews & son 1510.
Stuart Emans told me, his recent Federation win from Okehampton was his first ever inland Federation win, with all the others being from France. Stuart lives in Sutton and for his profession he is a fireman. Stuart said his wonderful Gerald Delaney blue hen, ‘Jade 821’, has been so brilliant in the 2024 season and given him a lot of pleasure, winning 2nd Federation Okehampton, 3rd Federation Wincanton, 5th Federation Wincanton and 15th Federation Honiton. A strong contender for Federation ‘pigeon of the year’, I think Stuart! He started up in the pigeon racing sport in 2008 and has won the Federation several 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 has 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.
Graham Evans of the Isleworth club has won the Federation many times over the years and is enjoying a good season racing in the Three Borders Federation and had a good result from Honiton, recording 3rd and 4th Federation. Graham’s first bird on the ETS was his yearling blue chequer cock, ‘Merlin’ and he is a Herman Cuester pigeon bred by Mark Morrison of Newcastle. In the course of a racing season I write many times how delighted I am to see good workers in our sport do well racing their birds! In the normal run of things, secretaries, chairman, presidents and dare I mention, pigeon writers, find it very difficult to compete properly with their birds, because they put so much of their pigeon time and effort in to their pigeon jobs. Graham Evans took over the Isleworth SRFC secretary’s job in 1995 when my late aunty, Beat Penn, retired and has worked hard in the office ever since, only retiring recently. Graham has proved to be an exception to the rule and in spite of being club secretary for many years and Three Borders Federation delegate for the very strong Isleworth club; he is very successful racing his pigeons.
Graham races a small team of cocks on the widowhood system and likes racing up to 300 miles, and told me he doesn’t dislike long distance racing but hates the long wait at the loft for arrivals. The cocks have about four inland races before being split in to two teams, one for inland and the other for racing from France with the Combine. He feeds a standard ‘widowhood’ mixture and never breaks the racers down, but always shows the hens on marking night. He is a great believer in supplements and uses Travipharma products. The cocks are well trained before the first Federation race and during the season have regular daily exercise sessions around the loft to keep them race fit. The Evans partners have a smart 16ft x 5ft racing loft which consists of an 8ft section for the widowhood cocks and the other 8ft half of the loft houses the young bird racers, and all clocking is on the ETS System. Graham tells me he is a ‘scraper’ man and he says a fancier can find out a lot about the health of his birds from their droppings, and has never used deep litter, although can’t see anything wrong with the idea.
That’s it for this week! Well done to Stuart Emans on his Honiton Federation win! If you win and want a write up in this space, contact me on telephone number: 07535 484584 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)