Keith Mott
London & South East Classic Club ‘Forum’
The London & South East Classic Club held it’s last old bird race of the 2009 season from Bergerac, in south west France and member enjoyed a good testing race. The Central Southern Classic Flying Club convoyed the L&SECC birds for this Bergerac race and all the birds had to be taken to the Salisbury Livestock Market to be loaded on the their transporter. The L&SECC 1,136 birds entry were liberated at 05.45hrs in a no wind situation and the leading pigeons coped well with the eleven hour fly home to the London area.
Malcolm May of Worcester Park recorded 3rd open with his super blue hen, ‘Mayfair Belle’, and she was down from the Janssen bloodlines. When Malcolm brought this game hen to my home in Claygate to have her photographed for this article and I handled her, I was very impressed with her quality, being medium appled bodied, with brilliant feather and eye. A really nice hen! He also brought three other premier performers in the form of: ‘Mayfair Bully Hen’ winner of 81st open NFC Fougeres (OH), 27th open L&SECC Guernsey (OH), 58th open L&SECC Guernsey (OH): ‘Mayfair Lady’ winner of 126th open NFC St. Malo (5131 birds): ‘Mayfair Girl’ winner of 2009: 156th open NFC Fougeres, 222nd open L&SECC Guernsey. Malcolm has only had racing pigeons three years and has been racing for the last two seasons in the L&SECC and NFC.
In his short time in the sport he has put up some really good performances including 2007: 44th open NFC Guernsey (5408 birds) and 96th open L&SECC Alencon. Prior to that he kept a kit of white pigeons for a bit of interest and one day one went missing, so he knocked on Johnny May’s front door, who lived in the next road, and asked if he wouldn’t mind contacting him if the white pigeon went in to his loft. Needless to say, Johnny was one of the premier racers in the London area and after a chat with Malcolm; he presented him with some youngsters off his widowhood pigeon and started him off with racing pigeons. The gift pigeons from Johnny May were all Janssen based and these lines are still Malcolm’s loft today.
When Malcolm was a young lad he raced with his father, Bob May, and they were successful in the races from France, with their best position being 1st club, 1st Federation, 2nd open Combine Avranches with a single entry young bird. The Avranches race was in the year of the Queen’s jubilee and the game little blue chequer pied hen was named, ‘Jubilee Jill’. After that Malcolm became interested in birds of a different kind and on getting married packed the pigeon up until his restart three years ago. Originally his family were based on the St. Hillier Estate in Sutton and he knew all the pigeon racing Arnold family when they were boys, and tells me he used to go fishing with my good friend Keith Arnold, who now lives in Leamington Spa, when they were lads. Malcolm says, before that, his mother and father knew Keith’s parents when they all lived in Battersea. It’s a small world! Malcolm’s smart self built old bird loft is 16ft x 8ft with two sections, a full length corridor and ETS clocking. He uses an inch thick sharp sand deep litter on the loft floors and maintains this keeps the birds feet clean and warm.
The young birds are housed in a 10ft converted summer house and this loft has a mice aviary for the inmate to get out in the weather. He always raced on the natural system with his father, but the present pigeons are on a celibate system, where they are kept separated and are paired up for certain races and then are split again after the event. He mixes his own corn, feeding what he considers to be a channel racing mixture with plenty of protein and the birds are never broken down, always being given as much as they want to eat. Malcolm likes on the day long distance racing in the London & South East Classic Club and National Flying Club and is not a member of a Saturday Federation club. He owns no stock birds, all the youngsters are bred off the racing old birds and these are paired up in mid-February, with racing from France in mind. When bringing in a new bird to breed from he always goes for good performance bloodlines, pedigree of work, and is not keen on big pigeons, but prefers then to be appled bodied in the hand. The birds are trained off the south coast twice a week, single and double up, and Malcolm tells me he uses Littlehampton as the central training point and work up and down the coast ten miles ether side. Malcolm breeds about 24 young birds to race each season and says he is not really interested in them winning as young birds, but uses the Classic and National races to educate them for later life. He maintains it is very import that as babies they are well schooled with lots of training off the south coast and they must get released in big liberations off of proper pigeon transporters.
He is not in favour of the darkness system and says for the type of racing he is interested in it is very important that the youngsters grow and learn naturally. After the young birds start their roaming from the loft, they are given their first training toss which is from Guildford (20 miles) and after several times there they then go on to Hindhead (30 miles), and then lots of single and double ups along the south coast. They are fed on a general mixture and are allowed to pair up for young bird racing if they like, but are never allowed to rear youngsters. He tells me he is not interested in pigeon politics and is quite happy racing his birds in the NFC and L&SECC. The one thing that amazes Malcolm is the very heavy losses incurred with young birds; he seems to think that fancier can’t train them enough, as he trains a lot off the coast and looses very little birds, in spite of racing in the Classic and National. In the 2009 season he bred 30 young birds and finished up with 24, even after training them hard, and racing them from over the English Channel. He says he admires the fantastic performances of Brian Denney of Strensall and his says his ambition is to win a long distance National race. Good luck to you Malcolm!
2010 RPRA Rings
A lot has been written in the fancy press of late about these 2010 RPRA rings and I would like to add that I purchased 60 from the NFC and lobbed then in the dust bin! These new rings are quite alright with new ETS chip on, but there is going to be all sorts of problems for the fancier who is still using the T3. I think the ridges could puncture eggs, cut new born youngsters toes off and if hooked on nesting material, could drag every thing out of the bowl, eggs, youngsters the lot. They are hard to read and dig in your fingers when handling the bird! I was lucky enough to get 50 NEHU rings for this season and refuse to use that RPRA rubbish. Why wasn't the fancy given the choice of two types of ring, the current type for ETS users and the old type for clock users? I hope with the bad press and general out cry about these rubbish rings we will return to the old type in 2011!
Just a little reminder that the new London & South East Classic Club telephone number is 01494 786026 and our new secretary, Terri Hoskin, can be reached on that line. That’s it for this week! I can be contacted with any pigeon comments on telephone number: 01372 463480.