The Millbridge North Road Federation
The 2025 season kicked off with a visit to Darlington myself was on the transporter with convoyer Craig wale for the first race on the 19/4/25 and also helping out and witnessing the first liberation was Gary Cooper Pete Symonds and Mark Bennett we was greeted with an over cast morning with a fresh cold east wind after waiting for this to burn off and the sun release blue skies the birds were liberated at 11am into a fresh east north east wind.
Darlington liberation
The top open twenty birds are as follows claiming top slot of 1st federation was Ron Kitching flying 57 miles with a 2y blue Best Kittle widowhood flown cock that Ron informs us flown very well as a young bird for him with a winning velocity of 1648 from Darlington.
Ron Kitching
2nd, 19th and 20th federation was the Castello Family & Leach flying 61 miles with 3 x van den bulk of the Leach brothers x own family of the Castello's these were 3 x cocks with velocities of 1626.246, and 2 x 1570.
3rd, 16th and 18th federation was Pearl & Ian Gaunt flying 57 miles with freshly switched south road birds to the north road route unfortunately no information of the birds could be obtained velocities were of 1626.185, 1589 and 1582.
4th, 6th, 7th and 8th federation was S Speight & Son flying 56 miles with their birds for this race being sent on the natural system before being split apart their first a 1y blue hen being a Eddie Bateman of Liverpool bird crossed the sire of their RPRA award winning bird the second a 2y chequer hen bred by Ross Thackeray and being a Gus Jansen crossed Van loon the third a 1y chequer pied cock that was bred by J & J Greenfield and the final a 2y chequer pied cock that won Elgin in the federation and IFC in 2024 and being a Stickers Donkers X Gus Jansen and was bred again by friend Ross Thackeray their velocities were 1620, 1618 and 2 x 1614.
S Speight & Son
5th federation was C Lister & Son & Grace flying 60 miles with a 1y blue cock doing 1619.
9th, 10th, 12th, and 13th federation was Robert Pearson flying 108 miles with his chaos system split team the first a 1y chequer hen being bred by Alan Dungworth of Mexborough Rotherham the next 3 being yearlings of Kevin Lawson of Ollerton Lambrechts and Herman Cuesters purchased from the new north road amalgamation Futurity young bird sales and the final a 1y chequer hen again bred by Alan Dungworth Robert's. Velocities were 1610, 1607, 1598, 1597.971, and 1597.748.
Robert Pearson
14th federation was Lister & Smith flying 56 miles with a 1y blue cock being a Jansen cross Harlequin and the dam goes back to Brian Denny's tough nut this was raced on the widowhood system and bred by Mr & Mrs Smith with a velocity of 1597.341.
15th federation was Mr & Mrs Hasslam & Son flying 107 miles with a 2y blue hen of Herman Cuesters based flown on the roundabout system doing 1597.324.
17th federation was Dyer & Borg flying 62 miles with a 2y blue hen of Jos Soojens of Shane Reading of Hull line bred flown on the widowhood system doing 1583.
Well that's the first of many reports of the 2025 season to come onwards and upwards with lots of events and distance on the table coming up shortly now we've started.
The Rat Man.
