CULBERT & HAMBLING

OF BARROW IN FURNESS

by Keith Mott

Since the Stuart Culbert and Alan Hambling pigeon partnership was formed in 2008 they have raced their pigeons on roundabout. The system is the basic roundabout system that due to their working commitments has been adapted to suit them. All the birds are paired the week before the Blackpool pigeon weekend; the racers then have the stock birds' first round eggs floated under them and once they have reared these young birds and they are weaned the sexes are separated. During the nesting cycle the birds, when daylight allows, will have their freedom and at this point they do not want to do much, however once separated the birds are encouraged to fly for the first couple of weeks, but due to the feeding regime during the winter they generally get the message, and fly freely after two weeks. The partners don’t train the old bird team prior to the first race, instead they get them to a level of fitness they feel happy with and enter them into the first race from 80 miles. This is more or less dictated through hawk predation than through choice. Stuart and Alan do break their team down once they commence the actual race programme but it's not set in stone, as it has a lot to do with what type of race and what type of performance they have had the previous weekend. Preparation for the next race starts at their loft on the Saturday evening when the birds are home. They are separated at tea time and the hens go to their individual loft. They fly out from this loft during the week and trap to a different door in the main loft at the weekend without too much hassle. They are then broken down until about mid-week then slowly put back on the widowhood mixture for the second half of the week. Stuart says, ‘we can honestly say we never experience much difference in their flying as they go at it every time they are out on exercise and are a real pleasure to watch. Friday afternoon is the key part of the week in our partnership’s eyes; this is when the pigeons are either motivated or de-motivated. We think this is key to winning races so everything is planned to fine detail for Friday afternoons as we cannot be rushing things’.

The team is expected to fly the complete programme on this system and the only change would be in the feeding of the birds by adding further protein into the mixture to prepare them for the longer, harder flights. The partners have been known to re-pair and they certainly did it 2011 with poor results so maybe not again or differently next time! They feed and race their pigeons on commercial mixtures that they buy from their club corn store and which are the likes of Bamfords mixtures and Versele Laga. Stuart and Alan probably only differ from commercial mixtures in the fact they like to mix a few different ones together.

As far as long distance racing is concerned they have had success over the years with pigeons in a number of conditions but their own choice would be pigeons sent on the conventional roundabout method. Using these methods the Culbert & Hambling team started off very well at the start of season 2011, taking the first three positions in the first four races racing in a very competitive club. At the end of a busy 2011 season their loft had managed to win 10 x 1st, 10 x 2nd, 5 x 3rd, 8 x 4th, 8 x 5th and 1 x 6th racing in the Barrow Homing Society that can see in excess of 400 birds entered at the early races.

When I asked Stuart about his loft set up he said, ‘I would consider our present loft set up as being our best yet. It is simple and functional and all importantly dry. The section where we race the cocks to has a tiled roof and is fully enclosed on the front with half plastic sheeting that heats the loft up nicely during the racing season. There are a couple of small vents at the bottom of the loft that combined with the tiled roof space seems more than capable of coping with the air flow in the loft. We have 30 pairs in this loft when paired and they never do smell of pigeons. One other thing the plastic sheeting helps to combat is keeping the cock birds stress free, as they cannot see out of it and therefore during our cat problems mid season in 2011 they didn’t seem bothered unlike the roundabout hens! Our other lofts that house the roundabout hens and the loft for the young birds have a lot more ventilation. However all I can say is whatever loft the old birds are kept in during the season it hasn’t hindered one sex’s ability in racing against the other, they have performed equally well. We have used deep litter before in the race loft but have stopped this in recent seasons, however we continue due to time restraints to use a deep litter in the stock loft. Either way the birds look and handle well in any loft set up’.

Stuart and Alan have a number of different families of pigeons, including Staf Van Reets via their good friend Mick Barlow from Blackpool, or better known to the partners as the man with short arms and deep pockets or tight for short! They also have a number of Staf Van Reets that go back to Brownlee, Nee, Ward & Sons from Middlesbough and recent introductions have been Vandenabeeles from Mark & Dick Evans, who need no introduction from me. They own other various strains in the stock loft but they do not worry too much about whose name is assigned to which pigeon, it's more what the pigeon can produce that matters!

Culbert & Hambling had over 30 stock pairs last year and they feel to reduce the workload they will be reducing the stock bird team for 2012. The M. & D. Evans pigeons have bred them winners but it is a Vandenabeele cock from another source that has proven to be their most recent best breeder. This cock is called ‘Olympic Gaby’ and was a winner on the road of numerous firsts before they bought him at Carl Turner of Crewe’s clearance sale. He has bred three individual winners in his first year of breeding for the partners crossed with a Soontjen hen Stuart took a fancy to at the Europa auctions that he works for every year at the Sheraton Hotel in Blackpool. There is also a cock called the ‘Robber’ that Alan raced and won the Cumbria Combine with out of Falaise before being retired to stock, and he is breeding winners. The Staf Van Reets have been in the stock loft for over 15 years and have continued to breed many premier winners, and Stuart’s oldest stock cock ‘Bib’ having won 7 x 2nd racing, being beaten by a loft mate on five occasions, has bred two winners in 2011.

Stuart and Alan have always had a simple view when looking at buying stock birds and when Stuart went into partnership with Alan he found he too shares the same view. They only buy the type of pigeon that has a lot of recent winning history, and it has to be the type that they feel comfortable with to have in their loft. Therefore for 2012 they have managed to purchase ten pigeons direct out of Holland that are closely related to up to date winning Van Loon and Herman-Ceuster lines. Alan says, ‘no matter what we have paid for stock birds, if they do not breed winners they are history and we treat them no different in this respect to the race team; if they do not score they are also history. I am quite ruthless in this respect. Stuart has a kinder disposition or perhaps is more patient, but I have been told by better fanciers than me that the apples never fall far from the tree. With this principle, pigeons many generations back are not what you want, you want stock from birds that are winning now’.

Stuart enjoys every race he enters, but maintains most satisfaction can be gained when pigeons achieve top results when the conditions are against them; added to the extra distances then these are the races that bring about the most rewarding feelings. He still enjoys sprint racing and trying to win any race! He told me his best performance pigeons are difficult to think of because there have been many over the years, but he would like to single out one cock bird he raced with a previous partner, namely a pigeon they called the ‘Combine Cock’ and in only the third race of his life as a young bird he won 1st Barrow Invitation, 1st Westmoreland and N Lancs Fed, 1st Combine from Cheltenham. Not amazing by some peoples standards but suffice to say this pigeon defied the odds on that day by stopping the remarkable run of Mr. G. Spavin of the Lancaster club who had completely dominated the Federation results during the young bird season by winning, from memory, every race with numerous multiple timings. All this flying to a very disadvantaged location. This pigeon went on to continue to defy the odds and won in all of his eight racing seasons as well as having close to thirty racing positions. Stuart is convinced looking at the geography and wind on the day that this cock would have had three Combine wins to his name. As with every pigeon story there is always a twist; the partners lost him at seven years of age from a 140 mile race whilst setting him up for his favorite race, which would have been his last before being retired. Alan told me, ‘I enjoy the channel racing and when the birds are racing into a head wind then I enjoy it most, however I don’t think the birds enjoy it. There are very few birds that will race well at high velocities and at low velocities and when you have one it is a bit special. I am lucky enough to have raced the ‘Robber’ that won at 1700 ypm and won at 800ypm over the English Channel, but they are few and far between. I can still picture him trapping from Cholet as a yearling, flying 500 miles in 12 hours 20 minutes on the wing, what a thrill’.

Stuart and Alan say they are guilty of breeding too many young birds, but it is a vicious circle when you have too many stock pairs! They bred nearly 100 in 2011, but by the time they got rid of the ones that after eight weeks had not progressed and moved forward as they liked and a shocking toss from only 15 miles, because of a definite hawk strike, the partners ended up with getting 58 birds to the club's first race. They have a team of darkness young birds and a team on natural. It was the darkness young birds only that they managed to get to the final races as the natural ones appeared shot at in comparison. In the 2011 season they noticed that despite some of their young bird team being on the darkness system, they had completed their moult by the end of November. This was different to the wonderful team of pigeons they handled in Sunderland on the NEHU show weekend that appeared to be two flights behind. Maybe it’s all that westerly wind blowing in off the Irish Sea that helps! Alan says, ‘darkness or light systems all have something to offer. I personally think it has no affect on later performances as we always get our Darkies through the moult’.

When I asked the two lads how they came in to the sport, Stuart told me, ‘I guess I started taking an interest when I was about seven years of age, when I picked up what I would later find out to be a badly flown out pigeon in a local garage. I took it home and my mother being the animal lover took it under her wing, so to speak. Within a day this mealy stray had completely transformed itself. My mother gave it the run of the bathroom but unfortunately pigeons and an enamel toilet bowl don’t seem to mix as we found it dead down the toilet pan later that day. It was a few years later when I really got involved and that was due to moving house. Some of the lads I ended up knocking about with had pigeons so it was only natural that I had to have some. Convincing my mother after the early experience was another thing! My first stock, if it is fair to call them that, came from either the local redundant steelwork buildings, or from under the local Walney bridge, which is an island surrounded by the sea and this bridge is over ¼ mile long, and the currents can be lethal. We would climb up into the underside of the bridge to pick up pigeons out of the nests that were made amongst the girder structures. A far safer option and the one I always told my mum was the cardboard box held open with a stick and baited with bread. There were some right horrible specimens caught this way! Initially I guess we helped each other in those early days as there were over 50 lads in my immediate area that had pigeons; unfortunately only four remain as active pigeon fanciers now. My first winner is as clear in mind today as it was when it won for me in 1979. It was a dark chequer cock rung NWHU78CA2652 flown natural that won from Weymouth following a holdover. This was our longest inland race and to say I was chuffed to win the race and beat the local aces Bowen Coulton & Walker is an understatement. The first club I raced in and they still exist today, although I am no longer a member, was the Barrow Victoria Flying Club; headquarters are in the Royal British Legion Club in Barrow in Furness. My first loft was an eight by five shed that I bought from a local pigeon fancier. When I arrived at the allotment to view the shed it had more first prize cards pinned on its inner walls than I could have ever hoped to win’.

Alan smiled and said, ‘my first birds were Snowy a white cross bred hen and Cocoa a high flyer and some rough old racers bought for half a crown off my mate down the road. My first racing pigeons were a grizzle cock that came in as a stray and a blue hen that I was given with no rings on. I can recall that I was about seven years old when I first got Snowy and Cocoa. They were kept in an old chest of drawers that had the draws taken out and a wire mesh front nailed to it. I used to take these birds to school up my jumper and let them go as it always amazed me that they got home from about a mile away. When I took them to Sunderland on the bus it was about 4 miles and they would sometimes take all day. I always beat them home but I was fascinated and I was hooked! My first real racing pigeons I obtained from the local boys' grammar school. I climbed up the drainpipe onto the low level roof and then walked up to the top of the roof across the slates and caught them under the eaves but it was worth it as they both had rings on so they were proper racing pigeons. They bred a multitude of top class pigeons in the eyes of a ten year old boy but in reality they were useless, but I learned how to look after them and by this time I was getting them home from Stockton on the day. I persevered with birds of this class until 1966 and this was a definitive time in my life as my father died, and the family moved to Wharton Street where a man called Jimmy Short lived. He was known as ‘shorty’ and he flew a good pigeon over the English Channel. Jimmy had his loft at the Ballast Hill, near by Brigham and Cowan’s loft where I was later to serve my learning time. He spotted me one day with my basket of misfits taking them down to the train station en-route to Selby and I suppose Jimmy really fired my ambition as he let me visit his loft at the Central Homing Society. After visiting his loft I realized just how bad all my misfits were and I really wanted to have a loft, and a team of birds like his. I was rarely away from the allotments and met great pigeon men such as Rod Adams, Geordie Davidson, Homer Hoy and Tommy Ayres. I also met two lads who took me under their wing and they were Alfie Hughes and Jumpy Joe. They were smashing lads and let me go into partnership with them, winning several good races together and we had some good pigeons such as Kitty, a light chequer hen which used to go to every race without a break and had a drawer full of cards but never won a race. I can still recall Tommy Ayres, who was secretary, saying poor old Kitty, she never gets a day off, but it did not stop us, she still went and she still scored. We also won the Percy Main open race in those days and I can still see the grizzle cock, a son off Kitty, fold his wings and trap like a bullet. That was my first taste of success and I have had the bug ever since. My first club was the Central Homing Society in South Shields. There were some top class fanciers in it then and it is still going strong today with some first class fanciers. Some of the top fanciers I can recall were Rod Adams and Herbie Elliott, Joe West, Tommy Ayres, Charlie Humphrey, Seymour Bros, Homer Hoy, Tommy Clarke and of course Hughes, Hambling and Roberts. Happy days and happy memories! It is worth mentioning that Rod Adams flew in partnership with Herbie Elliott in those days and he was a tireless worker for the sport then and he still is today. Rod Adams is an inspiration and I am very proud indeed to be associated with him. I was pleased as punch when this was recognized by the NEHU at the presentation night in November 2011, when he was presented with an award for his services to the sport. Well done Rod’.

When I asked Alan about their great champion ‘The Robber’ he told me, ‘the background to our good cock The Robber is I put him to stock at two years old because by that time he had been to the channel eight times and won 1st Cumbria Combine, 1st Furness Federation, 1st Furness 500 mile club Falaise, 4th Cumbria Combine, 4th Federation, 1st Furness 500 mile club Picauville, 1st club, 2nd Federation, 1st Furness 500 mile club, 32nd Three Counties Combine Cholet, 6th Cumbria Combine, 6th Federation Sartilly, 1st Furness 500 mile club, 41st Cumbria Combine, 6th club, 13th Federation Fougeres, 6th section A North West National  Picauville, 2nd club Cheltenham. I questioned on occasions whether I had done the right thing or not putting him to stock, however he has bred a lot of direct winners with a number of different hens and his grandchildren are winning wherever I have sent them. I have given them to friends in Scotland and the north east of England. I have a young hen that won two races as a young bird in 2011. These birds do win from 100 to 500 miles but they do not go further. I think one thing outstanding about The Robber is he has won at 980 ypm and 1700 ypm. He got his name because he used to rob the other nests of nesting materials waiting for the other birds to fly out then nip in and steal twigs and straw building nests that were massive. I have loaned him out to my friends Joe Tomlinson and Brian Banks to pair to their best hens and he has also bred good pigeons for them. He is of Hofkens Janssens descent and I purchased his father the ‘05’ cock from a man called John Dixon of York, when John emigrated to Australia. The Robber has gained three RPRA Awards: one for 1st Cumbria Combine Falaise, another for 1st Category D. Middle Distance Cumbria Region, and the third for 3rd Adult middle Distance National Awards. Not many pigeons about like him! He was a great pigeon to race, being always fit and always there on hard or fast days and when he flew Cholet as a yearling 495 miles it was a hard north west wind all the way home. He was 2nd Federation, beaten on the second decimal after 12 hours 40 minutes on the wing and was 32nd Three Counties Combine that day flying into Cumbria competing against lofts 60 miles south of his loft. This in my opinion was his best performance’.

Stuart has held a number of positions within the local clubs and federations in the past. Currently he doesn’t hold any official positions; he just tries and helps out at the club to help things along on race night etc. He says, ‘if there was one thing I would change if I was suddenly blessed with the power to do so, it would be a rule to ensure as long as a RPRA member wasn’t a defaulter then he couldn’t be denied entry to a local club as long as he was within the boundaries etc. I would also like to see the RPRA get tough on clubs and members who reform so as to exclude a local ‘ace’. The reason in most cases is these people are the local ‘aces’ is generally down to the time and effort they put into their loft. Maybe rather than thinking of ways to stop these aces, their own efforts should be concentrated at their own loft’.

Alan has been in the sport over 50 years and told me, ‘I have held many roles in this hobby but have taken a back seat of late, because I think it is a thankless task. I really struggle with how the people who do the work are constantly criticized. I do help out at basketing and clocks but will never hold an official position within the sport again because of people who have never done a bat for the hobby criticizing me when I did’.

I hope my readers have enjoyed this special feature on these two premier fanciers from Cumbria, Stuart Culbert and Alan Hambling.

TEXT & PHOTOS BY KEITH MOTT.