A very proud Sheldon Horn
Hi everyone I hope your young bird season is going well and to plan with as little heart ache as it can be to you as young birds can be a joyful or demoralising one week to the next but we keep on with it to succeed in the end. I just wanted to do this short interesting article on a fantastic pigeon in what I believe she has achieved and has done on the north road route that in these days gets very little coverage or press spotlight in the sport but I strongly believe this hen and fancier deserves just that for a great 2020 performance. Let me introduce Sheldon Horn of Stogursey village west Somerset near Bridgewater Town. Sheldon has kept and raced pigeons on the south road route for over 30 years with some good successes and keeping his own with 2 x NFC section wins and even a 4th open in the NFC plus many club and federation results coming in. But things in life change and Sheldon took a small break from the sport after a hip operation and a change in personnel affairs as things in life change for us all but Sheldon kept his pigeons and in this season of 2020 he took on a brand new challenge on flying the north road route for the very first time and this was drawing to Sheldon with less running around to marking stations and different Venues as we all know sending your birds everywhere can be very hard time consuming work so he joined the Bridgewater North road flying club which fly in the South West of England Lerwick club and the New North Road Amalgamation which is only a short drive away from his home and he was also drawn into this by the cost saving scheme of a yearly fee of sending 20 birds to every old bird race and young bird race from 50 miles to 650 miles at only £150 a year with no extra fees only if you send more than 20 birds so a great cost saver was also in mind so he took the bull by it’s horns to give it a try for a season to see how it goes as how can you knock anything until you try it as they say, with racing his ex-south road birds and a few new starters to the racing life so let’s take a look at one very special hen in what she has achieved in the 2020 race season for Sheldon.
Quantock Pride
The hen I would like to write about and introduce is a 3y blue hen in which Sheldon has named her Quantock Pride and when we look at her breeding lines and the amazing jaw dropping and mouth-watering story on her flying career it just shows you breeding class comes naturally if it’s a good pigeon and it just doses what’s bred in it naturally without any effort. This hen was bred by Sheldon and his local close friend Dan Hocking of Bridgewater as Dan has also achieved some great south road performances of a 2nd,3rd & 4th open NFC and also winning the NFC’s Mark Gilbert Trophy the two friends decided to pair one of their stock birds to each other’s with Sheldon’s hen the mother of Quantock pride is a direct hen from the World Famous JPS lofts of Ian Stafford & James Parker and her breeding consists of a direct daughter from Muckin Fagic paired to a direct offspring from the famous Matador which was 2nd international Barcelona and she was paired to one of Dans stock Cocks the father of Quantock pride which is a direct son from the famous Machine pigeon of Marshall Marshall & Smith so her line breeding consisted of quality from the day she was laid in a egg. Sheldon kept this hen for stock purposes flying out around the loft but never paired her up or bred out of her while he was on a small short break from the sport with his health and lifestyle but in 2020 he decided to race her and see what happens as he had quite a few pigeons in the loft so this hen was put into the old hens race section were Sheldon has flew the roundabout system with the cocks in one section and the hens in the other and just allowing them to run together on race days for a short period of time. Bering in mind this is a 3y hen that has never ever raced she was just given 12 X training flights around the 20 mile mark and then was sent to 7 x old bird races that consisted of 1 x Coventry (115 miles) 1 x Ilkeston (146 miles) 2 x Pontefract (190 miles) 1 x Hexham (264 miles) 1 x Crieff (359 miles) were she achieved 1st Bridgewater NRFC 23rd open in the South west of England Lerwick Club & 42nd open in the New North Road Amalgamation then her 7th race of her life Thurso ( 512 miles) the Thurso race was the south west of England Lerwick clubs Blue Ribbon Race of the Season as due to the Covid restrictions and outbreak there was no Lerwick final race on offer at the 600 plus mile point so as the South West of England Lerwick club normally work alongside the new north road amalgamation for its Scottish inland races and their final race was from Elgin the committee voted to go to Thurso which is slightly further for this to replace Lerwick for the very difficult 2020 season the birds were transported and liberated with the NRCC Birds and this inspired me even more with this 2020 Thurso race that was held on the 26/7/20 after a one day holdover the birds were liberated at 06.15am with the NRCC birds into a very light south East wind that turned south west on route and this turned out to be a very challenging tough race with many missing birds and empty perches for many top fanciers in the NRCC and competing federations and no day birds were recorded in the South west of England Lerwick club as probably the south west of England Lerwick clubs fanciers were the furthest flying fanciers on the transporter at Thurso and the mass bulk of pigeons following down the east coastline these pigeons are on the complete opposite west coast of the country and have no help with other pigeons wind or flat east coast Vegetable growing land as the mid Yorkshire hills and dales follows by the Midland dales and Gloucestershire Malvern hills and the Somerset Medip mountains are even more a obstacle for the birds with no flat east coast fields to float over with a helping regular west wind when the birds have to break for home and just think this little hen did all this on her own on only her 7th race of her life and was never raced as a young bird. The race day was very tough with few birds home in the northern Midland areas but Sheldon stayed down his loft till he could no longer see the loft with the darkness of the night taking over Sheldon called it a day at 10pm and retreated into the house for a refreshing beer the next morning at 6 am Sheldon returned to his loft and was greeted with a strong heavy thunder rain storm with flash heavy down pours of rain so he was not very optimistic in a pigeon returning as probably nobody was on that day as myself over 150 miles away in Nottingham was working on the Nottingham Victoria shopping centre roof and was dodging the heavy rain and was thinking I hope some birds come through for folk as some local friend fanciers in my area had sent to this race as well but only in the NRCC but you always get some come through but the rain had started early morning and was wide spread but at 10.38am this hen dropped in all the heavy rain soaking wet and was clocked were she achieved 1st south west of England Lerwick club Thurso Classic 2020 and 1st Bridgewater NRFC flying 512 miles doing 703.456 on probably the north routes toughest 2020 race of the season not bad is it for your first flying season on the north with a 3y that’s only ever had 7 races in her life I guess class just comes naturally not luck as top high performing birds were missing or came back late but that’s life in the pigeon racing game it is not for the faint hearted person. I asked Sheldon did you do anything in particular to prep this hen, he replied, she was actually properly paired up for the first time in her life as after she flew Crieff she was paired up for two weeks on the natural system and she laid her second egg just two days before being sent to Thurso and she was fed on a basic Super widowhood mix that was mixed with a standard breeding mix in which she could feed off when she wanted and Sheldon regularly applied conditioner seed with extra Hemp seed to the floor and a red Homoform mix applied down as regular treats to prepare her and a few others in which have also returned out of race time for Sheldon. So there you have a good true story on a ending note Sheldon would like to thank Steve Willis and the members of his new local club at Bridgewater for warmly welcoming him into their club and all the hard work the club secretary of Steve Willis doses and to the South west of England Lerwick clubs race adviser Dave Smith for no holdovers and for some good fair racing and he looks forward to his new north road flying.
Destination
I myself would like to congratulate Sheldon and Quantock pride and thank you for sharing your story and achievement that’s what the sport is all about.
The Rat Man
