L&SECC TOURS CLASSIC
26th May 2012
by Keith Mott (Press Officer)
The members of the L&SECC sent 850 birds to Tours for the second Classic race of the 2012 season and the convoyer, Rube Johnson, liberated at 05.30hrs in an east wind. These positions are only provisional and based on the members first bird telephone verifications.
1st Open 1st NW Section: Garry Inkley of Hillingdon: Garry won the race and recorded his fourth L&SECC winner, being a previous winner from Dax in 2003, Alencon in 2008 and Falaise in 2010. Garry is fast becoming one of the premier Classic and National racers in the South of England, putting up outstanding performances every season. The latest Inkley classic winner was a game yearling blue hen raced on the widowhood system. Her sire is a grandson of ‘Golden Lady’ from Premier Stud and her dam is a Janssen from Moore x Odgen and Goden. Garry says three of his L&SECC winners go back to Premier Stud stock birds.
Garry first became interested in pigeons as a nine year old when on a summer’s day in 1967 he rescued a stray pigeon whilst playing football on the local green. With some help from his pigeon fancier grandfather, he converted an 8ft.x 6ft. garden shed into a pigeon loft and a team of Logans were set up for him, by his grandfather. Garry says, after a year of breeding his own birds and training them from 3 miles on his bike, with heavy losses, his parents had noticed that he had become obsessed with pigeons. Consequently, his father encouraged him further and applied to join the Hayes N.R.F.C. in 1968 as J. Inkley & son, in order to fly the 1969 season. Garry maintains that members of the Hayes club were a great bunch of characters, amongst who was the late, great Ken Hine, who lived opposite the Inkleys. As the Logans were lost by the seventh old bird race from 300 miles, Garry looked forward to young bird racing, where he won his first prize cards. It was at the end of 1974 that Garry was invited to become Ken Hines partner and Gary says it was then that his pigeon education began. Together with Ken and George Burgess he visited some of the best lofts in the country, including Peter Titmuss, Ron Mitchieson, Eric Cannon and Tubby Tate. As the insignificant 17 year old boy in the group, the young Garry always kept his mouth shut, but his eyes and ears open to learn anything he could from the greats of the sport. Garry’s pigeon education took a massive leap forward when on a trip to the Blackpool Show he met Bob McDonald of Fraserburgh, who was on his stand, displaying his Ko Nipius family. Garry was astounded at the quality of Bob’s pigeons and immediately ordered six youngsters for the following year. In 1980 he met his wife, Val, and pigeons started to become a close second and consequently the partnership of Hine & Inkley went its separate ways. In 1984 Garry and Val were married and moved to their present address in Hillingdon. A very close friendship had developed between Garry and Bob McDonald and the Inkley loft raced the Ko Nipius pigeons hard up to 560 miles, with much success, including 1st Bergerac (only bird on the day), 1st Marmande (only bird on the day) and twice 1st Dax (545 miles), with the same pigeon. Garry considers Bob to be a master at conditioning pigeons and developing a family. The other great influence on Garry was Eddie Newcombe, now in Malta and they became good friends, consequently many Festival eggs were brought home in a loaf of bread and reared at the Huntingdon loft. During the 1990s Garry progressed winning a car, the Federation countless times and won his second R.P.R.A. Award in 1999 in the form of the Victory Trophy. This trophy was for the best three longest races and Garry maintains it’s a proud moment when your name is on the same trophy as Alf Baker and Jim Biss. Through the years Garry has gone on and won everything in front of him at Combine, Classic and National level, with the climax being his wonderful victory in the 2012 Tours Classic. Congratulations to Garry on his wonderful performance!
2nd Open 1st SW Section: Mark Gilbert of Windsor: What more can you say about the ‘master’ that hasn’t been said before! He recorded his fourth L&SECC winner from Alencon two weeks ago and here he is at the top of the result again from Tours. I marked his birds at Leatherhead and they were in ‘mint’ condition, and a real credit to him. I look forward to seeing Mark’s performances in the forthcoming International races. We have a new fancier started up in the Dorking area who recently joined the Classic by the name of ‘Mark Gilbert’ and he tells me his name has certainly improved his ‘street credibility’! So we have two Mark Gilberts in the L&SECC and I introduced them to one another at Leatherhead marking.
3rd Open 2nd NW Section: Stuart Sheffield of Old Windsor: Stuart’s first bird on the ETS was a two year old widowhood blue chequer hen and she was of his own breeding. This hen is a class act, having previously won: 1st Cholet and 28th open NFC Messac.
4th Open 2nd SW Section: Jenkyn & Barrott of Chertsey: Dean Jenkyn tells me the partners had two birds home in two minutes and the first bird on the clock was a three year old widowhood grizzle cock, and is bred down from the very best Van Loon bloodlines. He was raced in the Berkshire Federation this season and won the club from Carentan. Dean previously won the L&SECC from Guernsey in 2000.
5th Open 3rd SW Section: Mr. & Mrs. Mick Chaplin: Mick had two birds hit the top of the loft together from Tours and the first clocked was a Berger x Wildermersch hen raced on the widowhood. This game two year old has been very successful in old hens races winning: 8th open NFC Old Hens and scoring in the L&SECC Old Hens Guernsey race. Mick Chaplin has been an outstanding member of the Classic and in 2003 won 1st open Guernsey (young bird) and 1st open Guernsey (old hens) on the same day.
11th Open 1st NE Section: Fred Ager of Grays: Fred’s first bird and 1st NE Section winner, a roundabout blue hen is becoming a specialist at the Tours Classic having previously recorded 21st open in 2011. This game pigeon is raced on roundabout and of the Van Meldert strain obtained from Foxwood Lofts. Fred Ager won the Tours Classic in 2010.
21st Open 1st SE Section: Tom Williams of Orpington: Tom’s Section winner was a yearling blue chequer widowhood cock and was bred from Jimmy Gibbon and Christ Gordon pigeons. This game cock had a night out this season from the L&SECC Alencon race. Tom had two birds together from Tours and the other was a widowhood cock that had recorded 2nd SE Section L&SECC Bergerac in 2011. I talk to Tom quite frequently on the phone and he asked me to thank Allan Cecil for all his good work at the Maidstone marking station.
PRESIDENT’S COMMENT - KEITH MOTT
During the week building up to the Tours Classic everyone was worried about the strong Easterly winds forecast for that weekend, including myself, but full credit to our Saturday team, Rube Johnson and Ian Mead (convoyers) and Steve Appleby (race advisor); we had a hard, but very good race. The weather for the whole weekend was wall to wall blue sky and sunshine, but the sting in the tail was the strong easterly wind right from the liberation site through to the home lofts in the UK. The lads got the birds up nice and early and gave the birds a good start, producing an excellent race, with the winner doing over 1300 ypm. A fantastic velocity in that wind! The Tours race weekend was as perfect as it could be, with marking at all stations being very slick and finishing on time, which is full credit to the great team worker we are lucky enough to have in the L&SECC. Well done to every one concerned! I marked all the ETS birds at the Leatherhead marking station and on the day I commented what wonderful condition Garry Inkley’s birds were in and they proved to be well on top of the hard fly. Congratulation to the Garry on his fourth L&SECC win, a record he only shares with Mark Gilbert. Articles on these great fanciers to follow in a couple of weeks. Well done and thanks to all our marking station workers for their good work so far this season! Member please note that the new L&SECC Internet Website is now live on www.lsecc.com Next race is the main event, Tarbes, on 22nd June.
WEATHER REPORT - STEVE APPLEBY
Examining the weather conditions on Friday the main concern for this race was the easterly wind strength over the channel. Talking to the duty forecaster at the Met Office on Friday evening I was reliably informed that wind force over the channel on Saturday was forecast to be force 4 (12 to 18 mph) gusting force 5 (19 to 24 mph) and that it would be a hot day. Therefore an early liberation was planned allowing the birds to take advantage of the cool of the morning before temperatures rose. This coupled with the light easterly winds over northern France enabled the pigeons to reach the French coast line in good time. Viewing the NOAA satellite image showed all of northern France and England under clear blue skies. So to summarise there was no hiding place from the sun for the pigeons racing under the cloudless skies in the dry fresh hot easterly winds resulting in a testing race for the east side of the country.
CONVOYER’S RACE REPORT TOURS (26/05/2012) - RUBE JOHNSON
My assistant for the Tours classic was Ian Mead and it’s always a treat to have him come along, as he is good company and a great worker. On the Thursday marking day we did our usual basket pick ups in Essex and Kent, and arrived back at the main marking station at North Leatherhead Community Centre at 12.15hrs. All the birds were watered at the marking stations. We were on the road to Portsmouth docks at in quick time and arrived at the Portsmouth booking office at 17.30hrs, where the birds were watered on the dock. We sailed at 22.45hrs, with the convoy having a restful channel crossing and we docked in Caen at 05.45hrs.
From our arrival in France and run through to the liberation site the weather was good, with a little cloud cover, but plenty of sunshine. We arrived at the Tours liberation site at 13.15hrs and the birds were watered on arrival, and fed at 14.30hrs. On the Saturday morning we awoke at 04.30hrs to a clear sky, with it being one of those days when you knew it was going to be brilliant weather. I rang Steve Appleby and he gave me a good on line weather report, with blue sky and plenty of sunshine all the way to the French coast. We cut the strings and liberated the Classic birds at 05.30hrs in an easterly wind situation. The birds formed one batch and cleared the site very quickly in a northerly direction. The weather was very good on our journey back to Caen, with blue skies and sunshine, and on our arrival back at the Ferry Port we found the English Channel was nice and clear, with strong east wind.
COMPILED BY KEITH MOTT (L&SECC PRESIDENT).