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Three Borders Federation: Nicolae Dragan of Chessington - 31-07-24

Three Borders Federation: Nicolae Dragan of Chessington.

The Three Borders Federation held its first young bird race from Wincanton on the last weekend in July and Dom McCoy, the Federation convoyer, liberated the birds at 07.30hrs, in to a light South West wind situation to beat the heat and clashing with other organisations. Dom reported first class weather conditions and the convoy cleared the Wincanton liberation site in good time. Members enjoyed a great fast race and Stuart Emans of the Mitcham & Merton club won 1st Federation Honiton, recording his third Federation winner of the season, previously winning from Okehampton and Honiton with his old birds.

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One fancier who had a good race from Wincanton was Nicolae Dragan of the Esher club. He is from Romania where he kept pigeons as pets all his life and moved to England eight years ago. Nicolae told me that pigeon racing is very big in Romania, with the most interest being in the long distance racing and some races out there attract birdage up 35,000 birds being entered. He decided to start up again and race his birds two years ago and joined the Esher & District RPC. I’m told he is a great worker for the club at the HQ in the West End Sports and Social Club on marking and clock checking nights. It has been a great year racing for the Dragan loft, with him breaking his ‘novice’ status and winning his first ever racer from the last and longest old bird race from Truro. His first ever winner was his good two year old ‘Romanian’ dark chequer cock, ‘The Truro Cock’ and he was sent to the race sitting ten day old eggs. Three weekends later the Three Borders Federation was at Wincanton for the first young bird race and Nicolae won again! His good natural blue hen, ‘Blue Storm’, won 1st Esher club, 8th Federation and was racing to the perch. On her build up to her win she had ten training tosses up to Southampton (43 miles) and was never put on the ‘dark’ system. Her sire was a gift stock cock from the Chris Slight and Mike Charlton partnership of Esher, which was very nice, as Mike Charlton passed away last year and is greatly missed at the Esher pigeon club.

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Nicolae Dragan’s loft is 18ft x 6ft, self-built and has three sections for his ten pairs of old bird racers, his thirty young bird racers and his seven pairs of stock birds. All the birds are paired up in January and his racing system is 100% natural, with no widowhood or darkness practiced in the racing season. He is enjoying club racing, but says he really likes long distance racing and wants to concentrate on it solely one day soon. The favourite nest condition when sending to races is sitting ten day old eggs or feeding a four day old youngster. The old birds get two weeks of training up to 40 miles before the first race and then one toss mid-week once the fun begins. Nicolae says his system is very simple and the whole loft is fed on a good mixture of corn. When picking out new stock birds he is not interested in type or fancy pedigrees, but wants to see a history of outstanding racing performance. Nicolae told me, all he has learnt about racing his pigeons has come from listening to the wonderful fanciers at the Esher club. His stock team are mostly gift birds from the Esher club ‘aces’: Vic Emberson, Paul Arnold and Chris Slight and says he really enjoys the annual pigeon shows held at the Esher club in the winter months. Well done to Nicolae on his great performances this season!

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Text & Photos by Keith Mott (July 2024)