FLYING INTO THE NORTH WEST OF IRELAND
by Billy Knox
Part 3
LEO FLANNAGAN - ANOTHER OF OUR OPEN WINNERS
This week we take a look at another of our illustrious Open winners, Leo Flannagan who has probably set the best Open result seen to date into the North West. Leo actually took 1st & 2nd Open, a record that will probably stand for a very long time.
Having kept pigeons since a schoolboy in the Waterside, Leo has been at his current Glenbrae Lofts for some twenty-five years and, I must say, that as a man who keeps plenty of birds, the lofts and birds are a credit to him. His birds are in great order and his lofts are spotless, an example to anyone and a great advertisement for the sport in general.
Blue Cock, a section winner himself and off the 2nd Open winner
Leo races with the Londonderry club and although these days races only inland, he has in the past won from most of the channel races such as Talbenny, Bude and Penzance. The only one that eluded him was the French race. Nowadays, he has no interest in channel racing as he can’t be bothered with all the holdovers and the two or three day racing. In fact if he could race down Ireland on the same day as a channel race he would rather do that instead. Leo is quite at home with the race programme that we have had in recent years with the N.I.P.A. including a number of comeback races to coincide with the channel events. Taking all this into account, surprisingly, most of Leo’s pigeons have a lot of very good distance bloodlines in them.
Over the last number of years, Leo has had multiple Section wins not including his great Open success. In fact, he managed to win the Section three times in one year, with two Section wins from Thurles and Pilmore Beach in consecutive weeks.
Blue Pied Cock. Son of the Open winner. Father of 5th Open.
His record making Open win came from the Mallow 5 Bird Championship Race in 2006. The winning birds were both hens who were not paired at the time. Both birds landed together and, although the 2nd Open winner was the hen Leo thought to be the better of the two, he lost four minutes trying to coax her into the loft as she was trying to get in to a section where she had obviously paired to one of the cocks. Leo actually had a third bird about fifteen minutes after his first two, but didn’t clock it. If he had he would have taken another good Section and Open place.
Leo flies 208 miles from Mallow and it is a race point that he likes and always does well from. His open winner was doing a velocity of 1489ypm, and although he still has the 2nd Open winner, the winning hen has unfortunately since died. His winner was a Grondelaar/ Van Loon and Krauth cross. The second hen being a Verschelde, bought from Leslie Madden in Coleraine as a young bird. The sire of the Open hen was Paddy Healy’s Guernsey cock which came from Alex Jordan in Belfast and the dam was from a Peter Martin Van Loon/Krauth.
Leo with the 2nd Open hen
A grandson of Leo’s Open winner was in fact 5th Open last year from Tullamore, a race in which Leo finished 5th, 28th, 36th and 56th Open against some 18,500 plus birds. And Leo also had a 2nd Section from Rosscarberry last year and, with other clubs wins, he is a man who is still very much enjoying his racing. The 5th Open cock, which Leo calls the 19 Cock, is one Leo has high hopes for in the future.
Another interesting fact about the Open winner is that the father of the hen died at 22 years old. He was in fact 18 years old when he reared the hen.
Cheq hen - Section winner
Leo admits to keeping too many birds but does not like to cull any. A case in point was that he had a ten year old cock which took a third place in a club race. All the birds in Leo’s loft are there until they fall off the perch with the exception of any gift birds.
Grandchildren of Leo’s open winner are still winning and the children off the open winner are breeding winners. Leo’s blue cock that won the Section is from a Janssen cock and Verschelde hen. The hen being the mother of the Open winner as well. The Janssen was from Terence McCrudden in Coleraine. One bred from this pair won Bude for Terence in 2010 and went on to be 25th Open in the King's Cup in 2011. What a pair these are. The 19 Cock which took 5th Open is a grandson of the Guernsey cock who is a Grondelaar, when paired to a hen from Wright Bros from Doncaster.
The 19 Cock - 5th Open
And finally, just to mention that Leo does not split up his birds. He is hoping for another good year this year and certainly has the birds to do the job.
