National Flying Club
Chale Young Birds
Report by Les J. Parkinson & Cameron Stansfield of www.elimarpigeons.com
This was always going to be a tough race for some after the holdover with the strong winds and showers around the country. The section vels were considerably different from the 2000 plus ypm to the winning loft down to the 800ypm plus vels of the section winners in sections C, D&G. Congratulations go to all winners in the final race in what has been a very trying National season.
1st section E 1st Open goes to the partnership of Alan & Gary Young and their star of the moment “Louisa”, their provisional winning pigeon in the Chale YB National. The sire was bred the well known multi-National winner Geoff Kirkland while the dam was bred by their good friend Davy Hunt of Dagenham. This was “Louisa’s” sixth race of the year and she was a quarter up on her fifth flight. Unlike many of the paired, darkness or any other modern day system this is a natural winner racing to the perch that has been a very consistent pigeon in her first season on the road. Unfortunately due to time and the e-mail system we have no more information but we would like the partnership to forward more on their system, birds etc and a couple of photos for a future article.
1st Open NFC Chale YB for Alan & Gary Young
Winning 1st Section A is the very successful partnership of Ian Crammond & Nigel Langstaff of Fontwell in Sussex who clocked within 32mins of liberation at 2.57pm, recording a vel of 1886ypm. The partnership were less than pleased with the decision to race from Chale so just entered their “A” rung pigeons and topped them up with a few N rung birds to make a team of 12 for the race. The section winner is a darkness hen flown celibate and was bred from a pair of pigeons gifted to Ian & Nigel by the well known Barber & Hilson partnership. George Hilson is a good friend and they regularly exchange pigeons from their best lines. George joins them from time to time when they go on their annual visits to Holland and Belgium. The bloodlines of this winner originate from Bill Bailey via George and are essentially Maurice Mathheeuws. This section win follows a run of Classic wins this season including 1st & 2nd open BICC Exeter1966 birds. 15th & 16th open BICC Yelverton 2509 birds. 1st 2nd 3rd LSECC Wadebridge 2698 birds. 5th open BICC Wadebridge 1320 birds. 2nd sec NFC Sennen Cove 5350 birds.1st 2nd 4th 6th Solent fed Yelverton 2407 birds. 5th sec 574th open St Nazaire NFC 4483 birds. 8th sec 269th open BBC Messac 1781 birds. 1st sec A 409th open St Malo 4073 birds. 3rd & 4th sec 140th 159th open NFC saintes 3144 birds. 4th 6th sec G 8th 21st open BBC Bordeaux 1654 birds. 16th sec 106th open NFC Bordeaux 2810 birds.
1st Section B is won by Lee Willett who was away in Wales at a loft waiting for a friend’s pigeons while giving me this information so enjoyed two big races on consecutive days. I very often say that pigeons don’t need a lot of races before going into the big ones, well in the case of this pigeon he had none, that is apart from a few training tosses. The reason was that this one as one of Lee’s special rings on so he didn’t want to lose it before the big one, in fact he kept all his nom rings back because they were not sure what route they were going to be racing. When I say didn’t want to lose it the reason is that Lee finds that these pigeons can soon go down as young birds but after that they are fine. Every year Lee brings in pigeons from Mr & Mrs Hoad of Woking because they have always won for him. In the case of this pigeon the breeding is out of the SMT Messac combine winner. The young birds are raced on the darkness but this loft is strictly a channel loft as over the water is where he likes to race his birds.
Lee Willett
1st Section C goes to F & J Halstead where the birds had to fly into a strong head wind and this is the first young bird section winner to these lofts since John moved from the Midlands to Dorset 4yrs ago. This adds to the impressive record of 5 NFC young bird section winners in the last 11yrs for John. This section winner, in line with 4 of the previous winners, contains some Busschaert bloodlines but this time crossed with a good Vandenabeele hen being direct from M & D. Evans stock. The sire to this “A Rung” chequer cock is the “Dorset Dart”, winner of 6 x 1sts and twice 1st Staffs & Moorlands Federation and now sire to a 2nd NFC section winner, the other being the Old Hens National winner of 2004. All John’s young bird section winners have been raced on the darkness system, which has been fine tuned over the years to enable the youngsters to perform to the best of their ability. John says many fanciers have good pigeons but fail to get the best out of them through sticking with the same old ways. Starting the season with 35 young birds on the darkness, only 3 have so far been lost racing and 5 training. This season cocks and hens are all in together, several having nests and eggs but at the time of basketing, this cock was driving a young blue hen to nest. He also had a young chequer hen showing to him whenever the blue was away.
Section D once again sees A & D. Hodge in pole position. This win follows their 1st Section Saintes and 2nd Section, 2nd Open St Malo this season. The events leading up to thiswin were amusing. On arriving at the Exeter marking station his basket opened and all his birds got out. Andy at first decided not to send but Nobby Henley and Andy Cridland persuaded him to go home and get them back. Another twist of fate is that this pigeon was given to Andy by Andy Cridland after enteringAndy’s loft on a couple of occasions from joint training tosses. Andy’s birds have had 2 build up races with Devon & Cornwall Continental FC, from Chale, again proving that this club is amust for tuning up for the NFC. He would like to thank Nobby and Mike Henley on the dedication they both show in supportingSection Dmembers and alsoPaul Naum for his sponsorship of Section D this year.The pigeon is aClive Lister Gaby Vandenabeele, with its nestmate being 2nd Section D for Andy Cridland. This race was extremely difficult for all Section D fanciers, a howling southwest wind proving extremely testing. The two Andys both had 9 out of 10, proving the new transporter is a major factor in keeping the young birds in excellent condition, the birds looking great on their return. Well done Andy and Denise, a great season, thoroughly deserved by dedicated fanciers. Thanks to Andy Cridland for these details.
Andy Hodge
1st Section F is won by Peter J Campbell who used to race his birds up north in Carlisle and decided to move down to Basingstoke in December 2001 to fly in the nationals and classics on a much more level playing field. When Peter moved down he decided to purchase birds from Louella and obtained his Silvere Toye pigeons in kits of 10 and 12. These birds have served him well winning many club firsts and some decent classic and national positions. Last year Peter decided to buy some of their performance Janssens, again from kits of 6 for £99. Two of these birds were paired together this year and bred a Red Chequer hen, which is the bird which was clocked on Sunday in the YB National. She has been a consistent little hen, always arriving just after the first couple of birds and on one occasion actually pulled out of a large batch of birds directly above the loft, which had just been released from Basingstoke with the wind pushing them over his location without following them a single yard. Peter was pleased to see her do this because it showed him that she had the brains and ability to pull out of a large batch. Peter named her Little Red Niamh after his 9-month-old daughter. Peter was also 3rd section Old hens with a 2yo Dark hen who was stitched up as a yb by club member Dave Hawthorne’s wife Gill. This hen is his tame hen who thinks Peter is her mate and always shows to him when he goes into the loft. She is a Toye x Janssen At the end of June Peter had to move the birds out of the garden to their present location because they moved house due to all the problems they had from their neighbours over the previous 12 months.
Peter campbell
1st section G were T J Cocks & Son with son Simon sending the following information. ‘The winning pigeon is a blue white flight Barker cock, bred off of stock purchased from Mike Owen of Wales. He was sent driving a hen and has previously won 1st Minstead in the Bath South Road Club. Young birds are fed 50% Versele Laga Gerry Plus, 50% maples. They get electrolytes in the water on return from racing and garlic and vitamins during the week. We tried the darkness system this year for the first time and after this result will probably try it again next year. The winner’s dam is pure Barker from Mike Owen and last season took 14th section, 52nd Open from San Sebastian in the British Barcelona Club. The sire took 2nd Club Saintes last season. Both birds have previously bred winners. The photo is of Simon, son and partner of Trevor Cocks & Son, holding the successful bird. Trevor, who does all the work with the birds, unfortunately went on holiday before the photo was taken. The champagne will be in the fridge for his return! Winning the section has been the highlight of what has been one of our most successful seasons in our 20 years of racing pigeons. May we also take this opportunity to congratulate all the other section winners of this race.’
Simon Cocks
It was a great day at the Polstead lofts of G. & T. Harris, with them winning Section H with both Young Birds and Old Hens. This is what Trevor had to say: ‘I have taken a lot of flack for saying what I am going to achieve but I have self-belief and belief in my pigeons, without which you will never achieve anything. The birds went up at 2.25pm and, flying 136 miles,I expected the race to be very fast. Just in case, my father and I sat in the garden from 4pm waiting for the birds to come home and at 16.34 we saw 2 birds coming. They went straight into the widowhood cocks’ loft. One was an old hen and the other a young bird. I lost no time and clocked the old hen at 16.36.05 and the young bird at 16.36.11. The old henis a 2002Louella Jan Aarden and was my first pigeon home from Bergerac in the BICC race of 500 miles in July. I kept her flying with the babies and sent her to a race the week before the National. She is always trouble to get in and had paired up with 3 different cocks in the last 2 days before marking as I had to let her in the cocks’ section all the time or she would stay out all day. When she came home she had a choice of 3 mates so no wonder she was quick. The young bird is also a Louella JanAarden hen and has been to every young bird race but she was not one of my fancied pigeons. As I sent 40 to the race I could not pool them all so had to choose a few to back.’ Trevor says he keeps his birds healthy by using Travipharma products and that you will never win if the pigeons are not right. This has been a great season for the Polstead lofts with 3 Section wins in the no 1 club in the UK and also he has had some very good results in the BICC. Not surprisingly, he says ‘roll on next season’.
Trevor Harris
1st section I were Gary Daykin & Son & Evans, a very well known top National winning loft from Carlton, Nottingham. This year the pigeons have not been worked as hard as Gary would like, the main reason being that Gary does not race in the weekly clubs and feds, consequently they have only had a limited number of inland races, mainly with the MNFC. For this season the pigeons are being raced on the roundabout with a team of between 60/70 being available. The system is working quite well even though there is more work involved. Knowing how many good performances Gary has achieved I asked about the best of them all. It didn’t take too long before he told me that it would be a toss up between Picauville and Chale, which were both fantastic results. The next question was what does it take to be a winner? “Good fanciers and good pigeons will always win whether racing on the north or south routes. You need the right tools for the job and the right pigeons for the management system that you have in place.” Gary finished by telling me about the Soontjen family and in his opinion they are something special, particularly if you have the right lines form the originals that came over.
1st section J sees Mr & Mrs Nigel Shaw add to their good performances to date at National level having won 2x2nds and 1x3rd section and this first section win tops off another good season. This is a red hen flown on the darkness system and feeding a four day old youngster. She has previously won the Audlem HS from Exeter and been 7th in the Market Drayton 2B. This hen was lucky to have a 1st section to her name because she was the second to the loft with the first not trapping until 43 seconds later. The section winner is a Jan Theelan hen bred by Nigel’s good friend Richard Windsor from R.Windsor & Sons. These last few years Nigel has had a real good spell at National level with many top performances and is a real dedicated fancier who never knows when to give up. Nigel works hard in his building business and expects the pigeons to work hard to earn their perch.
Mr & Mrs Nigel Shaw
1st section K is Peter Hagland who said that he is having the kind of season you dream of having but doesn’t come around as often as you would like. He is really on a high and wonders when the bubble will burst. Peter’s section winner is a Janssen/Herman chequer hen raced on the roundabout and he did have a good race with 9 in the clock. The sire is out of Peter’s 2nd Open Saintes cock when paired to a daughter of the Herman cock, winner of 18 x 1sts so there are plenty of winning genes in the breeding. The young birds have been racing well as a team all season and nothing is stopping them. It is never a fluke when pigeons are flying well and Peter puts it down to them being happy and content around the lofts. They have been in such good form that Peter has not even trained them for over a month prior to this National race as they have been exercising so well around home. Peter is like a growing band of National flyers because he sends only in the Provincial as a means of experience for the National races. There are more and more fanciers going onto this system because of the time required to get pigeons right for the weekly racing. Peter did say that a lot of credit must go to his wife who is a real treasure and does a lot of work and he would have a problem without her.
1st section L goes to Eric Taylor who is one of the most consistent young bird flyers I know and a hard worker with them. Eric was telling me that they go in the basket that much they settle down for a sleep straight away. This winner is a pencil-pied cock from the Verheye/McDonald lines that have been winning for Eric for many years. For this race this big strong cock was driving a hen to nest, Eric has been playing around with them to keep them interested. He is in fine form having been 1st club, 2nd fed the week before so is on a roll and no doubt Eric will be sending him on for another race or two, that’s if he can find them. The sire has won a few prizes including 1st with the dam also doing well and finishing around the top 50 in the National as a young bird. The winnings go even further back to the grandparents, so a good line kept going.