Keith Mott
Writes about winning fanciers past and present
2010 L&SECC Guernsey Classic (1)
The London & South East Classic Club had a good turn out of birds for the first Young Bird and Old Hens Classic race, flown from Guernsey at the back end of August. True to recent form, the weather on the day had a bitter / sweet edge to it, resulting in a funny race, with very fast velocities and considerable bird loss. I was at Carentan with the Central Southern Classic Flying Club birds that same day and the weather in France and the English Channel were brilliant, but it appears not to be so good in main land England. The convoy was liberated at 12.30hrs in to a strong south west wind and the leading pigeons recorded over 2000ypm.
Vince and Sue Durrant with their two sons, Jack and Sam, of Milford in Surrey won the Young Bird Classic with a mealy hen raced on the natural system to the perch. The amazing thing is that this game little hen won this 160 mile classic race, doing 2014ypm and was bred out of the very best of Eric Cannon and Ron Dodd’s 550 mile pigeons, with her great grand sire being Eric’s ‘Culmer White Flight’, winner of three premier positions in the NFC Pau Grand National, including 1st sect A, 14th open. This was the mealy hen’s fourth race, previously having three Federation races with the Godalming club and was given three single up training tosses from Hayling Island the week before her Classic win. Vince travels a lot with his work and says he owes much of his success to his family, as they do a lot of work with the pigeons when he is on the road. Sue helps out with the social events at the Godalming club and with son, Jack, carries out most of training of the partner’s pigeons. Jack is very keen on the pigeons and mostly looks after the long distance birds, with regular training off the south coast. Vince is the President and Treasurer of the Godalming club and needless to say, the Durrant family is great workers in the Godalming pigeon fraternity. I have visited Vince’s loft a couple of times over the years, the last time with our late friend, Eric Cannon of Wormley, when the Durrant loft won the SMT Combine from Rennes.
The Durrant family are leading fanciers in the Surrey area, winning many first in recent years and have been premier prize winner several times in the very strong Godalming club. The loft recorded 1st open BICC Old Hens in the 2009 season with a game little natural blue chequer hen. Vince has won the S.M.T. Combine twice in recent years and has excelled at the long distance events, since coming into the sport over 40 years ago. He has been a long time member of the Godalming club and has been a great worker for the club over many years. The last S.M.T. Combine old bird race of 1986, was the Blue Riband event from Bergerac (450 miles) and it saw Vince Durrant win 1st Combine with 2,439 birds competing. The Combine winner was his two year old Louella bred mealy cock 'The 62 Cock' which was raced widowhood. For the first S.M.T. Combine race of the 1987 season members sent 3,929 birds to Rennes (220 miles) and Vince won the Combine for the second time with a red chequer son of 'The 62 Cock'. Vince thought the 1986 Bergerac race was one of his best to date recording 1st, 5th & 8th club, 1st Surrey Federation, 1st SMT Combine, winning several highly rated trophies. Another outstanding performance in 1986 was 8th Section E, 21st Open Pau NFC recorded by his two year old blue pied hen '05', which also recorded 7th Open Tours BBC in 1986. The Durrant loft also won 1st & 2nd open Tours in 1986, and recorded nine of fifteen entries in the Rennes Young Bird National on the day, winning 30th, 90th, 141st, 240th, 262nd, 282nd & 349th open. Brilliant pigeon flying!
Vince has kept pigeons for over 40 years, starting at the age of 11 with a pair of Ron Dodd of Shalford pigeons, which turned out to be two hens. Three Guildford North Road fanciers gave Vince a lot of help when he started, they were three brothers who all raced separately, Bert, Charlie & Doug Webster. Vince played a lot of football up to a few years ago, but now plays quite a lot of squash. He is also a keen fisherman. His first club was the now defunct Guildford North Road club and he won the odd card racing from the north. Other fanciers who have helped Vince since were Ron & Chris Cox of Farncombe who have supplied the majority of his stock, and have helped by taking his birds for marking. Vince's wife, Sue, is the grandaughter of late Godalming 'ace' Stan Edgington and Vince raced his pigeons to Stan's back garden for many years. Congratulation to Vince and his family on their Guernsey Classic win, it was greatly deserved!
The Old Hens Classic was won by the highly successful Bellchambers Brothers partnership of Brentford. Their winner, now named ‘Westwood’, was purchased at the MCC young bird auction in 2009 and was bred by Midlands partnership of Westwood Brothers. This game hen was bred from the best Cattrysse bloodlines and is bred down from Colin Lloyd’s National winner, ‘King Arthur’. ‘Westwood’ won the Guernsey Classic being sent on two big babies and as a young bird recorded 29th open L&SECC Guernsey.
The very successful Bellchambers partnership race in the Isleworth club and have enjoyed very successful racing every year, with 2005 being one of their best seasons racing in the Three Borders Federation. They lifted three premier trophies and won: 1st, 5th Federation Bergerac (longest old bird race); 1st Federation Messac; 2nd, 5th, 7th, 10th Federation Lulworth; 4th Federation Kingsdown and 7th Federation Exeter. In the very strong SMT Combine the Brentford loft recorded 1st open Messac (2,885 birds) and 11th, 20th open Bergerac (1,795 birds).
The 2002 season was another great one for the Bellchambers lads, when members of the N.F.C. sent 6,873 birds to the Guernsey young bird National and with a strong westerly element in the wind, a lot of the leading pigeons were in the London area. The Bellchambers family crowned a brilliant 2002 season by recording 1st, 2nd and 6th open in the Guernsey National. The brother’s father, Bill, named the NFC winner ‘Nelly Bell’ after his late wife. The pigeon a Staf Van Reet / Meulemans cross blue hen, which was a cross that has been very successful in classic and national racing for the Bellchambers loft in recent seasons. ‘Nelly Bell’ was a darkness youngster, sent to the national sitting 14 day old eggs and is bred down from a long line of good winners. She was one of a team of 60 youngsters in the Bellchambers loft that season and had four club races on her build up to the national win, being rested for one week before the national. Bill and his two sons, David and Derek, put 40 youngsters on the darkness system and keep the sexes separated until the first young bird race, then they are let loose together, to pair up if they wish, in a big young bird loft. The young birds have three 30 mile training tosses every week through out the season. The Bellchambers youngsters don’t exercise around the loft in the racing season, only going out the day after the race for a walk around the garden and a bath. I had a good chat with David at the NFC prize presentation in the December after their National win and he told me he is very hot on the young bird management and spends hours in the loft with them. In the Guernsey national the partners had three pigeons flying around the loft together and although ‘Nelly Bell’ was the third pigeon to the loft; she was the first bird on the clock and became the national winner. The 2nd open winner was a pencil blue Van Reet / Meulemans cock called ‘Bill’s Lad’ and he was also a darkness youngster. Their fourth pigeon in the Guernsey national, which rated very highly in the open result, previously won 1st sect, 3rd open Guernsey in the London & South East Classic Club, three weeks earlier. The four pigeons clocked in the Guernsey national were all bred down from one blue white flight Van Reet stock hen purchased at the Rod Baxter clearance sale. The Bellchambers young bird team were on fire in the 2002 season winning: 3rd, 4th, 46th and 50th open L&SECC Guernsey (1,376 birds), 1st, 2nd, 6th and 16th open NFC Guernsey (6,873 birds), 2nd, 6th, 13th, 26th, 47th, 78th, 82nd and 92nd open L&SECC (2,145 birds). Young bird racing at it’s very best!
The Bellchambers partners started up in pigeons in 1969 with a few streeters in the garden and their first racers were obtained from Billy Sando, and the old West Middlesex Federation convoyer, Roy Perkins. The partner’s first winner was from Bournemouth in 1970 and they always enjoyed club and federation racing up to three years ago, when they started to concentrate on national and classic racing. The Bellchambers loft has won the federation countless times and in races from France have recorded 1st open SMT Combine Nantes in 1999 and 2nd open SMT Combine Nantes in 2002. Bill told me that the grand dam of their national winner, ‘Nelly Bell’, won 12th open St. Milo young bird national in 1994, for the Brentford loft.
They race twenty cocks on the widowhood system and pair them up in February each season. The cocks rear a pair of youngsters and are on the system at 12 days on their second nest of eggs, when the hens are taken away. The widowhood cocks are not trained, just exercised twice a day around the loft and are not broken down, being given as much corn as they want. The birds are fed on Versele-Laga super widowhood and Bosmolen corn, and the widowhood team race through to 300 miles. The main family they keep is Van Reet and the eight pairs of stock birds are put together at the same time as the racing birds so that their eggs can be floated in the racing sections. Bill says he likes latebreds for the stock loft and the partner’s national winner, ‘Nelly Bell’, was bred from two latebreds. Bellchambers Brothers one of the best racing partnerships in the Middlesex area today!
That’s it for this week! I can be contacted with any pigeon banter on telephone number: 01372 463480.
TEXT & PHOTOS BY KEITH MOTT.