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“ON THE ROAD” WITH KEITH MOTT - 20-09-24

“ON THE ROAD” WITH KEITH MOTT.

Three Borders Federation (Wincanton Race).

The Three Borders Federation were at Wincanton and members sent 791 birds, for what turned out to be a fast fly home, with the Federation convoyer, Dom McCoy liberating at 06.45hrs into a south west wind situation. It was certainly the Richmond clubs day, with several of their members dominating the Federation result, including: Phil Halford: 1st, 2nd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th, 11th Federation, Eustace & Koby Benjamin: 3rd Federation and Freddie Kimpton: 16th, 17th, 24th Federation. Phil Halford’s performance flying into Fulham and taking all those premier positions was outstanding! His Federation winner, which was 24 ypm in front of his next arrival, was his Gaby Vandenabeele blue hen, ‘Lucy’, and she was raced natural to her perch. Congratulation to Phil on his brilliant performance!

The first ten in the Wincanton Federation result were: 1) Phil Halford 1947: 2) Phil Halford 1923: 3) Eustace & Koby Benjamin 1923: 4) Phil Halford 1923: 5) Phil Halford1922: 6) Phil Halford 1922: 7) Phil Halford 1921: 8) Phil Halford 1920: 9) Phil Halford 1919: 10) Phil Halford 1918.

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Phil Halford races his old birds on the natural, but says he went on the widowhood system in 2021 to cut down on his work load in the loft. He keeps sixteen pairs of racer and pairs up after he returns from the BHW Blackpool Show in January. Phil said, ‘I’m an old age pensioner and have been in the sport a long time, but I still get a big thrill out of pigeon racing and even with all the ups and downs, I still look forward to my racing every week’. He likes long distance racing, but told me, winning 1st, 2nd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th Three Border Federation from Wincanton was his best performance to date. Recording that result in the Federation was an outstanding performance flying into Fulham. The main family of pigeons kept are Gaby Vandenabeele, of which he has fifteen pairs of stock birds and he maintains he is very hard on breeders that don’t produce winners consistently. In the early part of the 2020 season Phil’s good friend, Detmar Melaski  gave him a kit of youngsters bred from his good racing loft, where he wins a lot of short and middle distance races. These youngsters, plus fifteen self-bred Gaby Vandenabeele youngsters are his very successful racing team in the 2020 season. He trains his young birds hard from 25, 50 and 60 miles three times a week, weather permitting, on their build up to the first Federation race and after that get regular tosses from 25 miles. Phil feeds his youngsters on a good mixture, twice a day. The youngsters are kept natural and in the 2019 he put them on the ‘darkness’ system and lost 50 young birds from the first toss, never to be seen again. Phil says, the natural is the best system for him, with the youngsters moulting well and racing to the perch. If the body and wing condition are good his babies have every race including the BICC young bird National.

Phil’s loft is 40ft long and 5ft 6ins wide and just fits in to his little garden in Fulham. When I say just fits, the loft runs down the garden and the width of the loft is the same width as the garden, with the front trapping bays being up against the garden boundary wall. Needless to say, Phil has very good next door neighbours! The self-built loft has five sections to house the old bird racers, stock birds and young birds. Phil says’ ‘the most important factor in good loft design in a good garden. My birds user the garden next door! My next door neighbour loves the pigeons and lets them use their garden to rack around in’. Phil doesn’t like deep litter on the loft floors, but maintains it is each to his own and cleans out every day, as his father taught him.

Phil Halford was born in Fulham and had his first pigeon when he was eleven years old, which was a red chequer stray and at that time had no idea about racing the birds. At the age of 13 he took up the hobby properly and read the ‘Racing Pigeon’ paper to try and gain some knowledge of the sport, but picked a lot by talking to the good old flyers. In the early days, Billy Britnall, David and Owen Gilbert and Freddie Reed were always there and helped him out a lot. The pigeon racer, Bryn James of Fulham went to school with Phil and they are still good friends today. Phil’s father kept pigeons as a boy, but never raced them. He was a lot of help for the young Phil and taught him to keep the birds and loft clean at all times, which is practice he still carries out today. He had been in the sport of pigeon racing fifty years and his first birds were obtained from Ted Murphy of Battersea and Billy Britnall of Ewell. One of the first from Ted Murphy was a Van Hee cock and this game pigeon won many positions for Phil, including 1st ‘two bird’ Guernsey race. The Billy Britnall pigeons were Harry Scott of West Drayton Busschaerts and out of the early ones there was a red hen, named ‘The Red Hen’, bred from the stock bird, ‘Unrung Mealy’. This ‘once in a life time’ pigeon never raced, but ever year until she died bred winners for the Halford loft. The first winner bred from ‘The Red Hen’ was when she was mate to the very highly rated light chequer cock called the ‘Showman’. Phil’s loft was shelf built in Rannock Road, Battersea and his first pigeon club was the ‘City Arms’ in Hammersmith. He told me it was a great little club, with very good flyers and the local milkman, Bill Lamb, was the secretary. Fred Potter worked out the velocities on checking night and he thought Phil to do the velocities and set the clocks. Phil said, ‘in those early days everyone had cars to train their pigeons in and all me and mate, Bryn, had was push bikes. I wished I was bit older and could have driven! I use to walk four miles to Putney train station with my basket of trainers, because they didn’t allow you on the bus with the pigeons’.

Speaking generally, Phil has always been interested in sport and likes Judo, Rugby and Shooting. He has no real views on the eye sign theory, but in the stock loft likes to pair a light eye to a dark eye and likes to see a nice coloured eye. He loves showing his birds in the winter months and enjoys his Sunday morning at the Spelthorne Open Shows. He judged at the RPRA Southern Region Show in 2018 and tells me I filmed him on the day, so he must be on the Keith Mott YouTube channel! Phil likes to do his fair share for the Richmond SRFC and is their ring secretary and Three Border Federation delegate. He admires the workers in the sport, including his friend, George Kimpton and the Three Borders Federation convoyer, Don Mc Coy. In his opinion the sport has not improved in recent years and maintains it is more money orientated these days, which is spoiling pigeon racing. He says, years ago fanciers gave new starters in the sport advice and pigeons, which seems is not the norm these days. Phil told me, will do whatever is required to produce winners and that includes inbreeding and line breeding in his stock loft. He breeds very few late breds for stock and his first one he bred was a mistake, having forgotten to take the eggs away. The result was a nice blue cock, which has flourished in the breeding section, breeding him some really outstanding consistent youngsters. He says the pigeon’s moult is the same every year, you can’t change nature. Phil doesn’t do any different at that time of the year, everything is same, including the feeding. He parts all the birds after the last young bird race, leaving the cocks with the nest boxes.

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The father and son partnership of Eustace and Koby Benjamin of Richmond have enjoyed a wonderful season racing in the Three Borders Federation and winning several premier positions, including 3rd Federation Wincanton. The partnership also had a wonderful season recently, but really hit top form from the third young bird race, flown from Blandford. The partners had five youngsters come together and they all went over the ETS in under 20 seconds to record 1st, 2nd, 4th, 5th, 6th Federation. A brilliant performance! The first two birds recorded were only a second apart on the ETS and the Federation winner was the Gaby Vandenabeele blue chequer hen, ‘Miss T’, and she was raced to the perch. Four weeks after her Federation win from Blandford this brilliant youngster stepped up again to win 1st club, 4th Federation Newton Abbot. What a great hen! Eustace and Koby finished off that racing season in great style by winning the longest young bird race from Yelverton. The last Federation winner of the season was the partnership’s game Vandenabeele, ‘23857’ and she had previously recorded 7th Federation Newton Abbot the weekend before. Eustace and Koby won 13 firsts in the Richmond club in that season, including all seven of the young bird events. Great pigeon racing!

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That’s it for this week! Congratulations to Phil Halford on his Federation win, it was a great performance! I can be contacted with any pigeon comment on telephone number: 07535 484584 or email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

 

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