L J Parkinson
The training is a bit up and down with the weather, but they are getting more than enough tosses in so there are no complaints on that side of racing, that is mostly thanks to our new trainer Steve. I hadn’t driven the new van but when Steve was on days, I decided to take them training myself and it is a good runner. Training twice a day is very time-consuming, but it must be done and even after the number of tosses they had had they are still coming back out of the northeast on most of them. I was talking to Ebony about this problem but there is nothing we can do; they will come into the town whichever way they choose, and we must accept it. I am hoping that when they get a bit further down the road in the races, they will straighten up a bit, we can live in hope. I remember having a discussion with the late Anthony Evans about this and he said where we were living at the time was the golden mile coming into the town. I used to think that was a load of rubbish, mind you I am going back to the late 70’s when I was in my early days of racing pigeons. We then moved to the west side of the town, and I soon found out what Anthony meant. Where we live now is not far off the distance where we lived in Warmingham Lane, Anthony’s golden mile, but we are about 1200 yards to the west. I remember when I first started racing a few people recommending a breaking point into each town which soon died a death, but I realise what they were talking about now. At the end of the day, we are racing pigeons and there are always challenges, position is just one of them. As we all know there are many challenges in racing pigeons and one way or another, we overcome them, that is what racing pigeons is all about.
Talking to.
From time to time, I have conversations with local fanciers, and one was recently with Dave Healey and as we do on these occasions, we ended up talking about whether I was going to join the Middlewich 5B club. Before the conversation was finished, I ended up putting an application to the club, he’d make a good salesman. Dave was saying that he wants to race from across the water and as things stand the best option is the National FC. He is going to get the vet side sorted out over winter and hopefully send next year. Dave does have this attitude that their pigeons are not good enough. I have always enjoyed racing in the NFC and have had some good results, so I mentioned this to Dave, if you don’t try you are never going to know. Others who have been on to me to join the 5B are Mel Bratt who will no doubt say something to me and Nigel Shaw who has already texted me. Been talking a lot recently to Craig Wilkinson, one of Elizabeth’s grandson’s. Anyway, we are both training around the same time and from the same places and Elizabeth suggested that we train together to save time and costs. I have a thing about training multiple training which I have proven to myself many times. When I have used local training facilities and there are some good ones about, but I have found the pigeons don’t do as well as when they are trained on their own. When I used the local trailer, they were always coming all day but when I train on my own, they nearly always come together, and they are racing to the finish line. I have been racing pigeons for over 50yrs and I have never had a young bird team that has had so many tosses before the first young bird race. I still talk to Elizabeth about the pigeons and what we are doing but I also talk a lot to Ebony while we are waiting for the young birds to come from training. What I have noticed about Ebony is you don’t have to tell her twice, unlike us pensioners where it doesn’t always sink in. I do explain to her about the pigeons but did add that because I have not bred most of them, I don’t know what their capabilities are, and we cannot be sure about the pigeons we are breeding off. We do have a team of stock birds which we have bred 11 from but again because we have not been racing young off them, we don’t know how well their offspring will perform. This subject came about because I was telling her about Houdini and I think he is worth breeding off, he is one of the pigeons that the BOP had a go at, injured but he got away. A expected he would no longer keep up with the rest when it comes to exercising around home. I think he is an intelligent pigeon; I say that after seeing how he worked out how to get out of the bob wires. He stretches his wing out behind him and leans slightly to one side and walks out. Every time we send them training, he is left on his own which he doesn’t appear to like, so when I have cleaned out and done the rest of the jobs, I am going to have my phone ready and see if I can get a video of him escaping from the loft. As we know pigeons do try to get out through the same wires and have failed miserably but Houdini has cracked it. David Coward-Talbott was telling me that he is pleased with the young team of pigeons he has. He has not raced as he would have liked to have done for a few years but is now back on track to enjoy the pigeons. He has had some good results this year but has not sent as many as he would have liked to have done. The reason being he did not want to throw them away in the northeast winds that we were having, where there were a lot of pigeons failing to make it home. It’s a good while since we have seen David at his best, he is a good fancier, but work commitments have got the better of him.
Nantwich Show.
Dave Windsor is still doing a good job for the pigeon section at the Nantwich show held at Reasheath Agricultural College. The show was held at Dorfold Hall, but they made the decision that it was not to be held there anymore, it’s strange because the show was held there for as long as I can remember. The pigeon section had become quite big but this year the birdage was down to 116 for the 5 classes of OC’s, OH’s, YC’s, YH’s, Fancy coloured. These numbers are less than half what they had achieved in previous years. Dave and the team have worked well with this show, and it has drawn the attention of non-fanciers. While judging, I did speak to a few of these non-fanciers who appeared to take a lot of interest in what I had to say, whether it served a good purpose is another matter. Even so they are doing a good job which is why Elimar sponsors the show and will be again next year. This year for the 117 birds there was £415 prize money, which is not bad at all. I think there were a few other fanciers who entered their birds but for some reason did not turn up.
The winners are, Old Cock’s, 1st Mr. & Mrs. Colin Stanley £36. 2nd & 3rd Chris Platt £45. 4th M & R Pass £9. 5th Kenny Lamb, the first 4 receive prizes.
Nantwich Show 1st Old Cocks Mr & Mrs Colin Stanley
Old Hen’s Kenny Lamb £36. M & R Pass 2nd £27. Chris Platt 3rd £18. J & B Oakley 4th £9. 5th Mr. & Mrs. Stanley.
Nantwich Show 1st Old Hens and Best in Show Kenny Lamb Nantwich Show BIS Kenny Lamb with Les & Ebony
Young Cock’s, 1st & 4th Bran Jones £37, 2nd J & S Archibald £22, 3rd 5th Mr. & Mrs. Colin Stanley £15.
Nantwich Show 1st Young Cocks Brian Jones
Young Hen’s 1st M & R Pass £32, 2nd Chris Platt £24, 3rd 4th 5th Mr. & Mrs. Colin Stanley£24.
Nantwich Show 1st Young Hen of M & R Pass
Any Age Colour, 1st & Best Res Mr. & Mrs. Colin Stanley £32, 2nd Brian Jones £24, 3rd M & R Pass £16 had to get a photo of this one as mine didn’t turn out, 4th J & S Archibald £8, 5th J & B Oakley.
Nantwich Show 1st in the colour class and Best reserve Mr & Mrs Stanley
These are the type of show’s that need supporting in the best interest of the sport because this is where we get a few thousand non-fanciers attending, many will call in and look at what the sport has to offer, whether any take up the racing pigeons is another matter, but we can say we tried. As I say well done to Dave and the team, let’s hope the entries get back to where they were before covid came along. I took Ebony along to help with the judging and to give her a few pointers to look at with racing pigeons. I was telling her that I once asked the late Jack Bate from Sandbach why it didn’t take him long to judge a show to which he replied, “When you walk into a room to judge pigeons you can see the winners straight away and the winner stands out”. So, when we walked into the marquee to see the birds I glanced around and said to Ebony “There’s the winner” she asked why so I took her to the pen and pointed out what we look for in a racing pigeon. When we had selected the 5 class winners, I asked her to judge the BIS, then she walked around and said the mealy hen. Yes, I know I pointed her out when we walked in, but at least she was taking on board what I was saying. Then I said you want the best reserve pigeon; she picked out the grizzle from the colour section which I thought was a good choice. It was a good experience for Ebony and one that I hope she has learned something from.
Photo.
How about the photo of Craig’s new launchpad for his pigeons, some people will try anything to get an extra yard out of them. Also have a photo of one of Nigel Shaw’s Sigogne National pigeons that still ended well up on the result, that’s determination for you. Well done to all the winners in the race and it is worth mentioning the lads in the northeast having a long journey into a head wind on their own, great flying.
Craig's new launch pad for the young birds Nigel Shaw's National Sigogne pigeon can home injured
Les Parkinson. 11 Rushton Drive, Middlewich, Cheshire, CW10 0NJ.
Tel: +44 (0)1606 836036. Mob: +44 (0)7871 701585.
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Web site: http://www.elimarpigeons.com