National Flying Club

Results Database

“5000 Mile Club”

J Nicholson & Son's Cornelius

Richard King

King Bros' Blackie

I recently had the great pleasure of researching, creating, and presenting special diplomas to J Nicholsons & Sons of Rochester and King Bros of Lower Failand. These two partnerships each have a pigeon which have flown and been clocked in NFC races aggregating 5000+ miles between them! When I discovered that two pigeons had flown such an extreme distance, all with one club, and been timed to prove the fact I thought it would be highly appropriate to create a 5000 Mile Club! For me there is way too much emphasis placed on 1st Open and Section Winners … and not nearly enough on the pigeons who score from race-to-race over many years at all distances. With these two pigeons winning their members’ badges I wonder how many will follow in subsequent years. May I say that I greatly benefited from the co-operation and assistance of John Nicholson and Richard King … talking to them about these two wonderful pigeons gave me 100% vindication that these awards are worth winning. Thanks also to Peter Bennett for kindly allowing the pictures of Cornelius and Blackie to be used on the diplomas.

Let’s now look at their performances … firstly Cornelius a 10yo red Cock flown by J Nicholson & Sons. This pigeon has already come to prominence by winning a coveted Certificate of Merit award for taking a top 100 open position in the longest old bird race on three occasions. So let’s be under no illusions about the quality of this pigeon … absolutely top drawer! And look and the time-span of this pigeon … it’s won its first top 100 position in 1998 from Pau then again from Pau in 2000 and then FIVE years later from Tarbes! This is the kind of performance pigeon we all seek … distance no problem and all the determination and guts you could wish for. This pigeon has been in more Grand Nationals (6) than Red Rum and the race will miss him in future years.

Now onto Blackie flown by King Bros … a 10yo Dark Cock. Well it really is tough to compare ANY pigeon to Cornelius in terms of his performances … but what Blackie shares equally with Cornelius is bucket-loads of quality and stamina … you simply can’t fly 5000+ miles and be clocked TWELVE times (including three times to Pau plus San Sebastian) without being a pigeon of iron constitution!

Remember that these pigeons won’t have been raced EXCLUSIVELY with the NFC so will have flown many thousands of extra miles including with clubs such as the BBC, BICC, LSECC, and CSCFC. Unfortunately this data is off my radar for the time being but I would call upon the Secretaries of all such clubs to share their race data with me and we can start tracking pigeons across all the premier clubs giving us the ability to create new awards for exceptional merit e.g.

1. For pigeons finishing in the Top 2% of a result in 500+ mile races twice in the same season (any and all participating clubs)?
2. For pigeons finishing in the Top 2% of a result in 500+ mile races three or more times in their lifetime?
3. Create a 10000 mile achievement club across all clubs?

It seems very strange to me that we continue to run this great sport and handle race results in a tribal fashion … by that I mean that the NFC has its own race programme plus its Certificate of Merit … the BBC its Spanish Diploma … etc … never the twain meeting up! A great many fanciers now belong to multiple specialist clubs and will pick out a race programme for a pigeon taking in more than one club each season and throughout its racing life. Yet to receive special recognition it pretty much has to race exclusively with that one club. Totally bizarre! In horse racing, for example, a thoroughbred like Nijinsky raced at a good many race tracks and to win a ‘Triple Crown’ it raced at three different venues to achieve it (Newmarket, Epsom, Doncaster). Yet these individual form lines from various race tracks, sometimes even from different countries, are gathered up and merged onto a single race summary without second thought? Surely to goodness we could do the same in pigeon racing … this is 2006 after all?

My database currently holds 45000 race records from the NFC but has unlimited capacity and could easily handle one million race records! Let’s start bringing UK racing together … ask your clubs to provide me with their race data going back as far as they can … there’ll be NO CHARGE to the individual clubs for the work I do with their data so there is no reason whatsoever why they shouldn’t take an active part in what would amount to one of the biggest step forwards ever taken in the Sport!

Paul O’Leary
PBO Solutions Limited