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Thatwastheweek

 

THAT WAS THE WEEK, THAT WAS!

by Keith Mott

What a week I’ve had! When you retire from work, as I have, you don’t know what day of the week it is, half the time! On Monday I had a nice phone call from 88 year old Fred Dickson of Northumberland, telling me he had a good win last weekend and won with a yearling blue chequer cock bred by Keith and Betty Mott, and he recorded 1st club, 2nd Federation, 12th New North Amalgamation Arras (377 miles) in a strong north east win. This game cock was a son of our good Eric Cannon stock hen, ‘Foxwarren Katie’ when mated to a son of our Number 1 Brian Denney stock pair, ‘Sasha’s Boy’ and ‘Lady Tuff Nut’. Congratulations to Fred on his brilliant success in 2013!

 

After two weeks of excellent weather, I finished training my young birds last Thursday and was looking forward to sending them for the first race with the Three Borders Federation on the Saturday. I had even had my car cleaned and had all the dead flies washed off! It was a good campaign this year with 16 tosses and only one youngster missing, comprising of two ‘nursery’ tosses, seven at Thursley (22 miles), four at Alton (37 miles), two at Winchester (50 miles) and one from my favourite training spots Petersfield (40 miles). I finished with a chuck from Thursley on the Thursday and had a phone call from Peter Taylor saying, ‘you are a week to early mate, the first Three Borders race is on Saturday week’. What? That meant I had to train every day for another week!

 

Fred Dickson very kindly gifted me the last daughter of his fantastic champion ‘The Five Times Bourges Cock’ which was killed by Sparrowhawk at his loft in Cramlington earlier this year. Fred sent four birds to the Up North Combine Bourges race in 2013 and with the race turning out to be a very hard push home, the birds clocked in the NEHU on the day of liberation could be counted on the fingers of one hand. Fred lives at the top end of the Combine and clocked his good Eric Cannon blue chequer cock, ‘Northern Expected’, at 06.03hrs next morning to record 1st club, 1st Federation, 1st New North Amalgamation and 8th North of England Homing Union open result (2,355 birds). This wonderful round about cock has now flown Bourges (581 miles) three times and won 1st, 3rd and 4th Federation. A fantastic achievement! ‘Northern Expected’ is a son of Fred’s champion ‘Five Times Bourges Cock’ which was bred from ‘Foxwarren Fred’, a red chequer cock bred by us at Claygate and he has proved to be one of the best 550 mile stock cocks we have ever owned and was bred from the very best of Eric Cannon’s wonderful long distance family. ‘The Five Times Bourges Cock’ flew Bourges (581 miles) five times and won of 3rd, 5th, 8th Federation Bourges and is the sire of 1st, 1st, 3rd, 4th, 4th Federation, 1st, 1st Amalgamation Bourges. Fred’s gift youngster was the only one missing from my last Winchester training toss, which proved to be my worst toss of the season, with my youngsters being well split up and working in all day. All week long I kept asking myself, why did I put that one in the basket? On Friday afternoon, six days after the fateful training toss I received a telephone call from a non-fancier living in the New Forest near Bournemouth saying that she had my NEHU rung blue chequer white flight youngster in a shoe box. The lady had a horse riding school in the beautiful little village of Crow in the New Forest and she told me that her daughter had picked her up in their garden. The fact that she had been just walked up too and picked up off the lawn didn’t sound too good to me and I asked if she was damaged, and the very kind lady told me she looked ok. I was on the road with in twenty minutes of receiving the phone call and drove the 200 miles through the very heavy Hampshire Friday afternoon holiday traffic to retrieve my prize Eric Cannon young bird. On my arrival at Crow the lady handed me the hen and she was very poorly having being hawked, and being so weak,  I gave her some urgent attention at the boot of my car before driving back to Surrey. I gave her more attention on my return to Claygate and set her up in a nest box, on a nice bed of wood shavings. After all my good efforts, my little white flight hen died in the night!

 

Thursday afternoon saw me get a visit from Laura Harmour, who works at the Natural History Museum in London. She wanted a meeting with me as she is researching lady racing pigeon fanciers for a personal project that she is been working on for some time. Laura is a lover of horse racing and is a regular visitor to Sandown Park and Kempton Park race courses, and regularly treats injured racing pigeons at her home in Surrey. She was particular fascinated with the Annett Boyd racing pigeon story from the 1980s, with Annett’s connection with horses, and starting up in the sport after finding an injured pigeon in the street. Let’s have a look back at Annett Boyd’s story!

 

The 1986 season saw Annette Boyd of Tolworth win 1st Open SMT Combine Bodmin young bird race with 3,592 birds competing, and this in only Annette's third year in the sport. The Combine winner, was known as 'Double Ace', a very nice apple ­bodied hen of Dordin breeding, had already started to show its potential the week prior to the Combine race when she won 2nd club from Weymouth. The dam, bred by Keith & Betty Mott of Claygate, was Annette's well known one-legged red chequer hen 'Lucky Lady'. This game little hen lost her leg as a young bird in 1985, when she was found hanging from the snow guard on the roof of Annette's house, firmly caught by her ring and was rescued with the aid of a ladder. Her leg was so badly damaged that it eventually shriveled and dropped off. Annette, being the animal lover she was, would not part with the hen and housed her in a rabbit hutch hoping she would breed in 1986. She was paired to a blue chequer cock, another Keith Mott Dordin cross, known as the 'Sherwood Cock'. The pair produced three youngsters in 1986: 'Double Ace' winner of 1st club, 1st Surrey Federation, 1st Open SMT Combine Bodmin; 2nd club Weymouth; 'Lucy' 1st club Blandford and 'Rupert' 2nd club Weymouth. 'Lucky Lady' was bred from Keith Mott's excellent Dordin pair 'Ronny' and 'The Hopwood Red Hen'. The 'Sherwood Cock' is also bred from 'The Hopwood Red Hen' when paired to Keith's five times winner 'Warrior'.

 

This story really started a few years earlier when Annette found a young feral pigeon in the road with a broken wing. She took it home and nursed it back to health. Once back to health the bird refused to leave and rather than see it on its own Annette purchased two more pigeons from a local pet shop. Annette had now caught the 'pigeon' bug! Annette's father, Charlie Sherwood, was an outstanding fancier 55 years ago until he was forced to give up with chest problems. Charlie had taken a great interest in Annette's pigeons and it was he who provided eggs from his fancier friends for Annette to place under her feral pigeon and it’s mate. It wasn't long before she had a small team of young birds and Annette got her enjoyment by taking these to work with her and releasing them to fly home.

 

Her next ambition was to race them, so she decided to join the local club and contacted the then secretary of Surbiton Flying Club, Keith Mott, who encouraged her to train her birds, and she competed in the last two Old Bird races of that season. Keith helped her train her young birds in 1984 and she won a couple of minor positions. In 1984 Annette was given some eggs and youngsters by Keith & Betty Mott and these were from their successful Denys Brothers and Dordin stock. These, along with his advice were to help a lot, for 1985 saw Annette break her novice status winning two firsts and two seconds in the club. However it was the 1986 season that was the stunning one for Annette, when she won twenty positions in the Surbiton club including six firsts, five seconds and 1st, 14th & 24th Surrey Federation plus 1st open SMT Combine.

 

Annette hadn't got a loft as such; it could best be described as a 16ft long rabbit hutch, divided into four sections. The birds were trapped through bob-wires and a litter of straw was used on the floor. Design of the loft was such that the floor was at waist level which made for simple catching of the birds. The family's two pet dogs, Pinky and Perky, were housed in kennels built under the loft. There were three pairs of stock birds and these were housed in small separate hutches. Fifteen pairs of race birds were kept, these were paired up on 14th February and fifteen youngsters were reared. The birds were all raced on the Natural system, as Annette didn't like the idea of racing on Widowhood system. Both old and young birds were raced regularly provided they were fit and in a reasonable state of moult. There was no set training pattern only as and when required. Favorite nest condition for winning pigeons in the loft appeared to be sitting 10-day eggs, but of course happy and contented pigeons are a must for any success. Annette said that she got the impression that a lot of fanciers tried to treat pigeons as machines rather than thinking, feeling animals.

 

Annette works for a local newspaper and prior to taking up pigeons was very keen on horse riding. The Boyd racing team consisted of the Keith Mott Denys Brothers and Dordin lines plus some Cattrysse pigeons obtained for her by her father, Charlie Sherwood. Annette said that the Dordins were racing the best for her. Like most Annette had had her disappointments, one in particular was during her second young bird season, when a youngster sat out for 10 minutes. She clocked the second arrival and still won the race.

 

The good ol’ days! Annette Boyd went as quickly as she came and packed up pigeons soon after winning the Combine. Her success was very short and sweet! When you think about it, it’s a fantastic achievement to win the Combine flying to a ‘rabbit hutch’. She wasn’t a wealth of knowledge about racing pigeons, but she loved her birds and they responded to that. A great lady! I can be contacted on Telephone: 01372 463480.

 

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