THREE BORDERS FED

BERGERAC 2012

by Keith Mott

The Three Borders Federation held its last old bird race of the 2012 season from Bergerac at the end of July and were included in the SMT Combine convoy, which was 500 birds strong. The Combine were transported by the L&SECC / CSCFC Transport Amalgamation to the race point in the south of France and after a two day hold over the birds were liberated at 06.45hrs in a west / north west wind.

Les Penycate

Les Penycate of the Spelthorne club won the Federation by a ‘country mile’ with a natural Hartog blue chequer cock, sent sitting eggs. I recently received an email from Les’ daughter, Debbie, saying, ‘my dad has had some success with his pigeons and I had to twist his arm to let me take some photos of him’. Young Debbie has been taking a photography course and the super pictures of Les and his Bergerac Federation winner were taken by her. Well done darling! The Penycate blue chequer cock was one of very few birds clocked on the day of liberation in the Combine and took 12hours 37 minutes to fly the 454 miles home to West Molesey, and won the federation by 59ypm clear. The first ten in the Three Borders Federation result from Bergerac were: 1) Les Penycate 1071: 2) T. Gollop 1012: 3) P. Williams 930: 4) W. Aherne 810: 5) Bryan Poulton 756: 6) W. Aherne 751: 7) R. J. Winton 714: 8) M/M Glass 709: 9) M/M D. Mansell & son 676: 10) R. J. Winton. One of the nicest guys I’ve ever met in the sport of pigeon racing is Les Penycate and one of his best ever racing seasons was in 2010 when he recorded several premier positions including 1st SMT Combine St Nazaire. The Penycate St Nazaire SMT Combine winner was his good yearling hen, ‘Debbie’s Girl’, who is named after his photo taking daughter, and her parents are a pair of Willy Thas pigeons obtained from Mick Betts of Scawsby, near Doncaster. His occupation all his life has been in the fencer building trade and he recently retired from work, which has been reflected in his outstanding performances with his pigeons. He is from a fence building family and tells me the late great Surbiton pigeon racer, Arthur Coxon, who was a first class fencer all his life, taught him the trade when he was a young lad. The highlights of Les’ 2010 racing season were: 1st club, 1st Three Borders Federation, 1st open SMT Combine St Nazaire (297 miles), 1st club, 3rd Three Borders Federation, 5th open SMT Combine Bergerac ( 450 miles), 1st club, 5th Three Borders Federation, 9th open SMT Combine Messac (255 miles). He is very keen on Channel racing and is a member of the National Flying Club and London & South-East Classic Club. The main families kept are Van Riel, Barker and Janssen, with the recent introduction of Staf Van Reet. Les maintains that over the years the Van Riel pigeons have been brilliant for him, right through to Pau (556 miles). He says that he loves day birds from the long-distance races. In 1986 the Pau National was a very hard race and he recorded 19th, 35th and 315th open with Van Riel pigeons.

He likes his pigeons, old and young, to go to the longest race points and says that he feeds Versele-Laga because it's good, sound corn for long distance racing. Les was born in Kingston in 1939 and his father kept pigeons before the Second World War, in partnership with his three brothers. In 1948, Les was given six youngsters by the premier East Molesey fancier, Joe Stediford, who flew an outstanding pigeon in National races at that time. Prior to owning his own birds, young Les was pigeon mad and fed the streeters in Kingston Market with bread. His father built a loft to house his six young birds and Les joined the Kingston &District Club, flying in the Surrey Federation. He soon added stock from the great Harry Branch of Mitcham to his Stediford youngsters and says that Joe taught him a lot about general pigeon management in the early days. The late, great, Freddie Ranaboldo of East Molesey was the premier fancier at that time, winning inland every week and he also won 1st open Pau NFC. Les has been in the sport for nearly 55 years and says one of his earliest achievements was in 1952 when he won from Libourne with a red chequer after 14 hours on the wing and won the London Federation by a clear 1 hour 40 minutes. It was nice to see our hard working Federation secretary, Bryan Poulton, at 5th and 13th in the Bergerac Federation result and winning the Shepperton club. He finds it very hard to find the time to race his birds properly these days, with the demands on his time running the Three Borders Federation and it’s great to see him have some good success. The Poulton pigeons are now his own inbred family and he says they have always tended to be better from the longer races. From the Continent, he maintains that his best performance was a few years ago racing from Bergerac in two clubs on the same weekend, taking the first three positions in one club and the first two in the other, all with birds clocked on the day of liberation. Bryan's wife takes a big interest in the pigeons. She says he is always looking for new ways to get some improvement in his birds' performances but finds that even though he took early retirement, lack of time is his biggest problem. He really is one of the sport's workers, being President and Treasurer of the SMT Combine, Secretary and Treasurer of the Three Borders Federation and acting Secretary of the Walton RPC as well as being a member of the L&SECC and NFC. 

In the 2008 season Bryan sent to his first NFC race for fifteen years, when he sent a small natural team of birds to the Tarbes Grand National and recorded his good seven year old blue chequer pied hen on the day of liberation, flying 564 miles, to win 1st Section E, 10th Open. This game hen was bred from Bryan’s base families of Cattrysse and Dordin, and being sent to Tarbes sitting14 day old eggs returned in excellent condition. On her build up to the Tarbes National she had two inland races, a Messac race when she scored 4th club and had several good training tosses before going to the National. She has scored many times from France including: 2002 (as a yearling): 1st club, 2nd Three Borders Federation Bergerac, 2003: 3rd club Bergerac, 2005: 2nd club, 11th Three Borders Federation, 24th SMT Combine Poitiers, 2006: 6th club, 20th Three Borders Federation Bergerac. A wonderful hen! It's always great to hear of any premier worker in the sport winning a good prize with his pigeons. It's hard to excel at racing with very limited time in the loft, so I was delighted to hear that Bryan Poulton, the hard-working Secretary of the Three Borders Federation of 25 years in office had won the NFC Section E. from Tarbes. At the end of old bird racing the Federation Points Trophy table reads: Esher 165 points: South Downs 158 points and leaders for the Individual Points Trophy are: Crook & Iddenden of South Downs 46 points: Vic & Lou Emberson also of the South Downs club 29 points.

I hope my readers have enjoyed reading about my ol’ mucker, Les Penycate; he is a great lad and deserves his good success! My phone number is 01372 463480.

See yer!

KEITH MOTT (www.keithmott.com)