KEITH MOTT

Writes about winning fanciers past and present

“ON THE ROAD” WITH KEITH MOTT

Three Borders Federation (Yelverton YB Race)

The end of the 2015 racing season saw the mighty Mitcham & Morden club win the ‘Federation Points Trophy’, with 190 points, in spite of the club not sending to the first young bird race! It was a very close run competition right up to the last race, with the Esher & District RPC finishing on 188 points, to be runners up. Well done to the Mitcham lads, with members winning a list of premier prizes including, Frank & Sue Carson: 1st Federation Yeovil, Bobby & June Harper: 1st Federation Falaise, Honey & Grandson: 1st Federation Yelverton, B. Looker: 1st Federation Messac, Bobby & June Harper: 1st Federation Yelverton (YB). The Federation ‘Individual Points Trophy’ was won by a country mile by Malik & Khan of the Esher club, on 94 points and they won 27 positions, and topped the Federation five times in the 2015 season. Well done to Imran and the lads, a fantastic performance! Bobby and Danny Carter also of the Esher club was runner up with 43 points and they won 13 positions, including 1st Federation Yeovil.

The clincher for the Mitcham & Morden lifting the ‘Federation Points Trophy’ was Bobby and June Harper’s wonderful performance in the last race from Yelverton, when they recorded 1st club, 1st Federation, 9th SMT Combine (1,617 birds). The Three Borders Federation sent 875 birds to Yelverton (180 miles) for the last young bird race and the convoyer, Dom McCoy, liberated at 10.00hrs in a south west wind.  As I’ve stated several times this year, Dom has produced some really good sport for the membership this season and the Yelverton finally was no exception. Well done, mate! Bobby Harper’s first bird on the ETS was his outstanding Gaby Vandenabeele blue hen, ‘Hat Trick Queen’ and this game little pigeon has won three races in the Mitcham club as a young bird in 2015. The Esher partnership of Colin Crook and Andy Iddenden won 2nd Federation, 11th SMT Combine form Yelverton with a Gaston Woear / Staf Van Reet blue cock and he won 3rd club Exeter the week previous. Paul Arnold bred this pigeon for the lads and the week before the Yelverton event he had a single up from Egypt, where Andy was on holiday.

The first ten in the Yelverton Federation result were: 1) Bobby & June Harper 1933: 2) Colin Crook & Andy Iddenden 1926: 3) G. Allison 1923: 4) Terry Goodsell 1921: 5) A. Lavender 1916: 6) Mr. & Mrs. David May 1914: 7) R. Obertelli 1910: 8) Mr. & Mrs. David May 1909: 9) Terry Goodsell 1905: 10) Terry Goodsell 1904.

A week after the Yelverton race I drove up to Morden to visit Bobby Harper and see his very successful team of Andrew Marney / Gaby Vandenabeele pigeons, and I must say we could not have picked a better day for a drive into London, with it being a beautiful warm, sunny September day. The 40ft loft is set out in a square and is fitted out with ‘sputnik’ traps for ETS clocking.      The loft’s special feature, which Bobby says is for easy cleaning, is all the floors, perches, nest boxes and the main loft floor are made of plastic. One of his ‘pet hates’ is deep litter on the loft floor and maintains he would never use it! The first bird I handled on my visit to the Harper loft was the Yelverton Federation winner, ‘Hat Trick Queen’ and she was bred out of Bobby’s good Andrew Marney / Gaby Vandenabeele blue pied cock, ‘Falaise Express’, winner of 1st club, 1st Federation, 3rd SMT Combine Falaise (1,534 birds) for Bobby in the 2015 season. What a family of pigeons, Federation winners breeding Federation winners in the same season! She was put on the ‘darkness’ system and flew six races to the perch to win, 1st club, 16th Federation Blandford (1,615 birds), 1st club Kingsdown (150 birds), 1st club, 1st Federation, 9th SMT Combine Yelverton (1,617 birds). Bobby raced a team 40 young birds this year and they were trained for six weeks up to 30 miles before the first Federation race. He commented to me, that 2015 was first season that his babies came so badly from training, taking 90 minutes to come from 10 miles and then came out and did so well in the racing!

Bobby Harper of Morden

Bobby Harper has enjoyed a good season racing in the Three Borders Federation and his full performance is: (old birds): 13th Federation Yeovil (1,628 birds), 1st Federation, 3rd SMT Combine Falaise (1,534 birds), 9th Federation Yelverton (887 birds), 2nd Federation, 4th SMT Combine Messac (1,164 birds), 6th Federation,14th SMT Combine Truro (1,512 birds), (young birds): 16th, 17th Federation Blandford (1,615 birds), 16th Federation Exeter (1,078 birds), 1st Federation, 9th SMT Combine Yelverton (1,617 birds). A great loft performance!

Bobby likes to play Golf as a side line to his pigeon racing and tells me he is on a 14 handy cap.  He like Federation racing from Blandford (80 miles) through to Bergerac (450 miles) and races 24 cocks on the traditional widowhood system. The racers are paired up in the second week of January, with the hens being taken away when the youngsters are about 16 days old and then the cocks are trained up to the first Federation race. The birds are fed on several top mixtures and the racing cocks are never broke down. The cocks fly out around the loft in the morning for exercise and are trained on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday during the racing season. The widowhood hens are shown to the cocks on marking night and the racers get their mates for an hour on their return from the race. The widowhood cocks are mostly raced inland and are fed on the best Van Robys mixtures. Bobby is on the basketing committee at the Mitcham & Morden club and tells me he prepares the race crates every week, and enjoys helping the club secretary, when he can. He rates Frank & Sue Carson as the best local fanciers and says the Sutton partnership has been topping Federation and Combine results for many years!

Bobby Harper at the loft

The Harper loft started up just after the Second World War, when Bobby’s late father, Bob senior, started racing pigeons in Lambeth and Bobby was his junior partner, hence the racing name R. Harper & son, which he still races under today. They raced in the old Chelsea & South Lambeth Flying Club and raced with great success, with the Ameel and Barker pigeons. Bob senior was a great worker for the club and was their chief clock setter for many years. Bobby Harper was born in a pigeon family, with Bob senior’s brother, Harry, and his father, Bill Harper, both being premier pigeon racers in the London area. The father and son partnership never had a big loft or kept many birds in the early days, because the back yards in Lambeth were very small and Bobby says, when you opened the outside WC door it hit the side of the pigeon loft! In those days there were many premier fanciers in the Lambeth area, including: F. Raynsford, Sharp & Bateman, Mr. & Mrs. Read, Len Henderson and of cause the great, Joe Langbridge. Bobby said “those were the days”! The Harpers won many premier prizes through the years, but never topped the Federation until they moved in to the present Morden address in 1994. Bobby bought the house off a pigeon racer named Roy Stag and when he moved out he left his loft, and that is still part of the loft set up today. Bobby has never won the Combine, but has been 2nd several times and can remember winning 1st Federation, 2nd Combine Le Mans many years ago, which was a great thrill at that time, for his late father, Bob senior. The main family raced with success in the early days was Staf Van Reet and Bobby purchased them for his dad in 1993.

Bobby's "HAT TRICK QUENN"

Bobby purchased nine pairs of Gaby Vandenabeele stock birds from Andrew Marney of Bromley in 2011 and after two very successful years racing them, he went back to Andrew and obtained a round of 40 young birds to race. Bob said, he can’t give Andrew Marney enough praise, he has given him brilliant Gaby Vandenabeele racing pigeons and good advice on how to be successful with them, and he has never looked back since meeting Andrew. Bobby races a few pairs on the natural system for the longer events and keeps nine pairs of stock birds, which are paired up after Christmas every year. We looked at all the premier racers in the Harper loft on my visit and although they were in the moult quite heavy, they all look in great health. Bobby treats his birds for the basic aliments, but tells me he is not in favour of treating pigeons all the time while they are racing. He never shows his birds and like his breeders to be above medium in size, but also likes a good type and most important, good feathering. The premier racers we handled on the day of my visit were: ‘Hat Trick Queen’ the Yelverton Federation winner, ‘June’s Girl’ the blue chequer hen bred by Andrew Marney and winner of 2nd Federation, 4th SMT Combine Messac and ‘The Truro Cock’ a handsome blue chequer cock also bred by Andrew Marney and winner of 6th Federation, 14th SMT Combine Truro. A wonderful loft of pigeons!

"JUNES GIRL"                                                            "THE TRURO COCK"

There you have it, the wonderful 2015 Federation winning success of Bobby & June Harper of Morden. That’s our article for this week! 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.co)