ON THE ROAD WITH KEITH MOTT

 A New Season Creeping Up! 

Well the new 2009 racing season is creeping up on us fast and I’m looking forward to have a bit more time with the pigeons this year having reduced my commitments. After eight good years I’ve packed the London & South East Classic Club convoying post, which I know I’m going to miss, but looking at the other side of the coin, it has gifted me with more time in the loft and I need to establish my racing team again. When you are away in France a lot of the time, your birds don’t get trained or raced properly and well bred pigeon they might be, they are not schooled enough to achieve their maximum potential. It is exciting times for me right now, as I have still got a wonderful team of Brian Denney and Eric Cannon pigeons to race from my beloved 550 mile race points in the South of France and have now recently obtained a couple of stock pairs to compete in the shorter Nationals and Classic races. Over the past 12 years I have only competed in the 550 mile races and now feel I would like to have a fuller season and have a go at some of short channel races. I could have obtained pigeons from any of the premier lofts in the UK, but went to some very good friends of mine, Richard and Ken O’Connor of Norwood and Keith and Sue Arnold of Leamington Spa, who I think have two of the best and consistent lofts in Europe at this time.

Richard and Ken’s Busschaert / Staf Van Reet pigeons have a fantastic record over the last 20 years and win Federations and Combines from 90 miles through to 450 miles. The O’Connors have won the Combine several times, including 1st open Combine Bergerac (450 miles) and 1st and 2nd open L&SECC Bergerac. Ken gifted me a mealy pied cock, now named ‘Young Rome’ and we mated it to a daughter of his champion Busschaert cock, ‘Batman’, and they produced a mealy hen which won the mighty Esher club for us last season. We have only raced one youngster off this pair and won with it, so thing are looking very promising! Keith Arnold’s Staf Van Reet pigeons must be one of the premier sprint / middle distance teams in Europe at this time, winning in 2008: 1st Federation ten times in twelve old bird races, also winning the Federation twice with the same bird in the only two young bird races competed in and 1st & 2nd Gold Ring. Keith has won the RPRA Region Sprint Award three years on the trot and was 1st RPRA UK Sprint Champion in 2006 / 2007 and 2nd RPRA UK Sprint Champion in 2008. A brilliant fancier with fantastic pigeons! Keith gifted me a top Staf Van Reet stock hen early last year and later on bred me a special cock to go with her. The super blue cock, now named ‘The Arnold Cock’, is half brother to Champion ‘58’, winner of 2nd RPRA UK Sprint Champion (5 times 1st Federation) in 2008 and his dam is a full sister to Champion ‘05’, winner of 1st RPRA UK Sprint Champion (4 times 1st Federation, 4 times 2nd Federation) in 2007. ‘The Arnold Cock’ is not only well bred, but he is a beautiful pigeon! Last winter I showed him three times and he won three seconds carrying two nest flights, including 2nd young cocks at the C.H.A.S.E. Charity Show in Horsham.

A new season, a new photo! I have been taking a lot of stick lately about my old photo which has been at the top of this page since, I don’t know, it must be about 12 or 14 years! Certain people tell me I don’t look like that any more and it needs up dating. I don’t really agree, but we have got a new picture which was taken in Tenerife a couple of weeks ago. Enough about me! My good mates, Phil Fishlock and Hillary Roberts of Wales have had a couple of brilliant seasons racing in the Welsh National, so I would like to up-date their story this week.  

Fishlock & Roberts of Briton Ferry

I had a phone call from my good friend, Phil Fishlock this week and he was telling me about the brilliant racing season he and his partner, Hillary, had enjoyed in 2008. They had a wonderful season in 2007 winning 1st open WSRNFC Fougeres, but even topped that in 2008 winning: 1st, 6th, 7th, 11th section, 1st, 6th, 7th, 11th open WSRNFC Lessay (194 miles), 7th section, 29th open WSRNFC Messac (236 miles), 1st, 6th section, 17th, 36th open WSRNFC Tours (278 miles), 3rd, 4th, 10th section, 9th, 11th, 28th open WSRNFC Saintes (432 miles), 1st, 2nd section, 2nd, 4th open WRSNFC Bergerac (509 miles), 1st section, 2nd open WSRNFC Tarbes (608 miles), winning several premier averages in the Welsh SR Federation and Welsh SR National Flying Club. Well done to Phil and Hillary, that is a brilliant loft performance by any ones standards!   

Phil Fishlock has been a friend of mine since the mid-1990s, when we used to meet up in France, with us both being convoyers for major organisations. I rate Phil as one of the best convoyers of racing pigeons in the sport today and unlike some people, he has never written into the fancy press to tell everyone how good he is. Self praise is no recommendation. This quiet man from Wales is a great convoyer and pigeon racer, winning countless major positions in his 50 years in the sport. Phil has been convoying racing pigeons for over 20 years and has worked for the Welsh SR National Flying Club and the Central Southern Classic Flying Club. Phil races pigeons in partnership with his good lady, Hillary Roberts and in the 2003 season hit the jackpot, when they won 1st Open Welsh SR National Flying Club Nantes (1,054 birds), with their champion blue chequer cock, ‘Our Dream Boy’.

Phil was born in Neath, West Glamorgan and his late father passed away at the grand age of 88 and he was a pigeon fancier all his life. He worked with his father's pigeons since he first started to walk and Phil tells me, he can remember, as a young boy, taking the birds to the local train station, to send them training, before going to school. Hillary was born in New Tredegar, Gwent and looked after her uncles birds when she was a youngster and has been around pigeons ever since. Phil says the fanciers that were doing all the winning when he was a lad were the Tregonings of Cwmgwrach, E. Humphreys of Seven Sisters, 'Winky' Humphreys and the school teacher in Cwmgwrach, Noel Jones, was never far away in the Thurso races. Phil's father kept mostly the old strains, Osman, Kirkpatrick, Hansennes etc and his dad always did well up to 600 miles. Phil tells me he has pigeon photos going back to 1937, when they won the Swansea Federation from Thurso (480 miles) and the Neath & District 2.Bird Championship Club. They won the 1965 Lerwick' race, which was one of the hardest races that Phil could remember, clocking their hen at 11.12hrs on the fourth morning, with only a handful home into Wales. The first birds that Phil ever purchased were Hansennes from James Weir of Newtownards in Northern Ireland, which won races from 60 to 500 miles and these pigeons were wonderful looking, dark chequers. A few years later Phil introduced the Fechan Lass pigeons from Louella with outstanding success.

Phil & Hillary's present Brynhyfryd Lofts are based on Louella Jan Aarden, Vandenabeele, Braspennings, Ponderosa Janssen, Jan Thelleen, Lowik Brothers, Eric Cannon (Keith Mott), Brian Denney (Keith Mott) and Woodland Stud Vandenabeele/Carreras. The partners flew north road for many years, but now race south with the Briton Ferry SR Club (Welsh SR Federation) and the Welsh SR National Flying Club. Phil & Hillary have an 80ft L-shaped loft and told me it is not like the modern-day type lofts, as it has a wire netting front from floor to roof. Hillary says the ventilation is very important in pigeon lofts and theirs has a vent, at roof level, at the back, the full length of the structure. The loft faces east and south so catches the morning sun, but when the wind is in the east, the inmates feel it. The partners keep the loft as dry as possible and a deep litter is used in the stock sections. Hillary cleans the loft out every day in the summer and Phil says you can eat your dinner off the floors when she's finished. Phil tells me that Hillary isn't too keen on deep litter, but he has no problem with it, as long as it is kept clean and dry. The loft has three sections for cocks, one for the hens and 24ft for the young birds. Fishlock & Roberts race their old birds on the roundabout system, up to Nantes, then repair and revert back to natural for the long-distance races. The loft houses 25 pairs of racers and the partners pair the - inland racers in January and February and the long-distance candidates, the second week in March. The cocks are trained one day, the hens the next, never being trained together and Hillary is always at the loft to get them in. They have to train the wrong way for the south road, as the M4 goes east from Briton Ferry, up to the Severn Bridge, which gives them a 40 mile toss. The birds are broken down after the races, being put on depurative and the cocks and hens are allowed together, before going off to the marking station. They run together for about 20 minutes on their arrival from the race and Phil likes hens sitting 10 day old eggs and cocks sitting time for the 500 mile races. Hillary told me that they normally keep about 70 young birds for racing every year, with the first round going on the "darkness" system, but say they are not sure if it's worth the bother, as there is little in the way of special races for young birds in their area. Phil maintains that they have the two Welsh Nationals for young birds and that's about it. The youngsters are allowed to pair up if they want to, but they haven't had many paired up in recent seasons, and have noticed that once they start training they seem to lose interest in pairing up. The young bird team is trained as often as possible from the Severn Bridge and are exercised around the loft twice a day. They are fed on young bird mixture and depurative until the Nationals come along, then they are put on widowhood mixture and Hormoform. Hillary mostly looks after the young birds, with a few fancied birds being stopped at the 100 miles racing stage and the rest go through to the National Guernsey races.

Phil who is a pigeon convoyer during the summer months was also a full-time carer for his late mother, who had just turned 90 years old. The partners are great workers for the sport and are secretaries of their local club. Hillary told me they like all sorts of racing and their best performance was from the 2003 Nantes National (320 miles), when they had three birds come together and won 1st Open, with champion "Our Dream Boy". Phil and Hillary also won the Section from the Dax National also in the 2003 season. A brilliant performance! Other outstanding racers in the Fishlock & Roberts loft are: blue pied hen "37770", winner of 1st Section Saintes, 1st Section Dax (a brilliant double Welsh National Section winner): "The Old Black Pied Cock": 4th Section, 23rd Open Bordeaux (14 hours on the wing) and then went on to win 1st Section from Saintes: "Lesley's Boy" red cock: 1st Section, 4th Open Welsh Region RPRA Nantes Centenary Race, 1st Swansea (Smash) Open from Plymouth. The Welsh SR Federation' has about 250 members and Fishlock & Roberts have won the averages on   several occasions. The partners are the secretaries of the Briton Ferry Club and Phil says he has a dislike of mouthy fanciers that are always condemning the very few that are willing to do something for the sport. Phil thinks the general health of pigeons has come on in leaps and bounds in the last 20 years. In his father's time he would I just dose the birds with Epsom Salts before breeding and that would be it. Phil says he doesn't know what his dad would say if he could show him what's in his microscope sometimes. The partners like to keep their different families pure when breeding, but like a first cross, which has been very successful for them, they don't normally breed latebreds, but had a few from their premier performers in 2003 and donated one off "Dream Boy" to the Blackpool Charity Auction. Hillary maintains the moult is very important and the birds get the very best in feeding, including widowhood mixture, with beans and peas for extra protein. This feeding continues until the end of November, then they keep adding barley until they get up to about 60% and this continues until about 10 days before pairing up.

I hope my readers have enjoyed our latest ‘ON THE ROAD’, it features the very best of Wales this week. I can be contacted with any pigeon comments on telephone number: 01372 463480. See yer!

TEXT & PHOTOS BY KEITH MOTT.