The Joe Murphy Column
Had some positive feedback on the 3 eyes in my column of the 16th October issue so I’ve added their photographs into this week’s issue, as many people wondered what they look like. The ‘Barca Cock’ was my entry into the Barcelona One Loft race competition, he flew Barcelona 625 miles 7 times; Perpignan 570 miles 6 times and other international races he competed in. My dear old friend John Tyerman brought him back over for me and I sent for him.
‘Barca Cock’ 'Belge Hen' 'Show Hen'
His full sister won 2nd section C 4 open SNFC Alencon flying 573 miles for Kevin and she has turned out to become a top quality stock hen. Their sire was a direct son of ‘Robbie’s Boy’ winner of 1st open SNFC Falaise for Gilmour Brothers of Leven. Their dam was a direct daughter of ‘Kingdom Spirit’ winner of a Double SNFC Gold Award winner. She won 10 times from over the English Channel and the only other pigeon to achieve this wonderful 10 times feat was the famous ‘Fortune Lady’ raced by Mr & Mrs Jimmy Smith of Elphinstone. The sire of ‘Fortune Lady’ was a blue pied cock bred by Tom McEwen’s of Elphinstone from his dad Archie & Tom’s blue (Van der Espt) hen; who had previously won 4th open SNFC Rennes in 1977 Gold Cup race with a convoy of 7,476 birds competing. This blue hen was the foundation hen of Archie & Tom’s loft. They won the young bird national from Cheltenham in 1970 and mated their winning 1st open cock to the 4th open Rennes hen (you cannot get any better breeding than a 1st SNFC winner mated to a 4th open SNFC winner). They took 6 youngsters from the pair and one of these bred ‘Marlene’s Boy’ winner of 1st open SNFC Sartilly in 1985 for them; and another cock from the 6 was the sire of ‘Fortune Lady’ mentioned above. ‘Marlene’s Boy’ bred Tom’s 4th open SNFC ‘Niort’ cock as well as a good hen ‘Penny’ winner of 4th open ‘SNFC Nantes. The McEwen story continues as the ‘Niort Cock’ turned out to be the grandsire of ‘Petite Rose’ winner of 1st open SNFC Tours in 2005 and he is also the sire of ‘The Bib’ a winner 4 times from SNFC channel races. ‘Petite Rose’ has continued this winning line of ‘PROVEN’ distance pigeons over 50 years. I’m sorry that I digress from the reason why I put the photographs into the column, but when I started checking out ‘Fortune Lady’ pedigree I got carried away reading her breeding. We don’t have pigeons of this calibre with only ‘Kingdom Spirit’ family continuing with this fantastic line of winning pigeons as her last daughter was timed in the 2020 Reims race flying 567 miles and won 10th section 20th open and I believe that this is her 4th SNFC prize ticket, so we wish George & his son Brian all the very best with their fabulous team of pigeons. As a matter of interest they do not race in a club and privately train their pigeon and then jump them into the nationals. Truly outstanding!!!!!
Ayrshire Winner
Willie Lawrence took the following positions 1st, 2nd, 3rd & 4th south section in Ayrshire federation race from Lauder were a convoy of 583 birds competed. They are a combination of Gerry Clements, Bob Besant, Rodger Lowe bloodlines. I have added a photo of Willie for the column.
Willie Lawrence
Conditioning 500 mile Winning Pigeons
Received a phone call from my dear friend Walter Boswell of Hamilton who informed me that he had done a piece on how he conditioned his chequer hen ‘Louella Lady Helen’ who won 2nd section E 11th open SNFC Reims from an entry of 1490 birds entered by 313 members. Walter wrote ‘At the end of 2019 I was a bit disappointed on my birds performance from the SNFC Burdinne Gold Cup race, even though I thought it was a bit shorter distance and turned out to be a fast blow home which does not suite my birds. I still timed a half-sister to Lady Helen to win 18th west section; Lady Helen did not turn up till about 20-00 hour that night and she managed to win the £20 pool. It was not until about 3 days later when handling her that I found a small piece of wood embedded in her chest: it looked like part of a tree branch. I thought to myself ‘you have been a very lucky lass’. She must have been attacked and dived into a tree for cover then worked her way home after ‘Percy’ was gone. I removed the wood and cleaned up the small injury and put on some antiseptic cream and left her to recover throughout the winter. Then I thought ‘What if that had been my other SNFC Silver Award hen ‘Mary’ who arrived home at 22-30 that night, However my best birds were home late but home.
Start of the Year 2020
In January as I took stock I had 22 birds that were qualified to go across the English Channel, as most had already been across or had every race to the coast. So I had a good strong experienced team to work with and I was really looking forward to testing them out over the channel. Plus my 2 SNFC Silver Award winners had a chance of a sought-after Gold Award; which apart from winning the West Section in the Gold Cup race. This has always been my ‘Goal’ thereby emulating my old mentor John Feenie. John had taken me as a young man to the SNFC presentation night when he won the section in the Gold Cup with ‘Strathclyde Lass’ and I was in awe at the Annie Rose Bowes Trophy he won. This was a huge Silver Bowl and I still remember the smile on John’s face as we travelled back to Hamilton Railway Club where we drank. He sat this beautiful trophy on the table in front of all the pigeon men where and he got a magnificent round of applause from everyone. This night will remain in my memory for ever!!!!.
I had bought in some sprint young birds from my friend John Short as my loft housed ‘Jan Aarden’ distance birds and my club results were going backwards. I like a gamble on my birds and our club had great pools with over £100 pounds most weeks. Plus the fact that there were horrendous young bird losses, I had decided not to race my own young birds but just train them and I would use the 24 sprinters to play with in the club racing. The reason I mention this will become apparent later on; the sprint birds were bred in January and I was delighted with them, ‘they were crackers’. Then all my dreams were shattered when ‘Covid 19’ arrived on our shores and training and racing was cancelled. James McGuire and I had 3 tosses before the lockdown ban and then it was all stopped. We were in limbo and I had paired the stock birds and wondered what to do about the race team and my national birds. If we did not get racing I was left with more late-breds and yearlings. I was worried as ‘NO Racing’ would put them back a year. I normally send my yearlings to the coast in preparation for the nationals the following year. ‘But’ if we did not get racing I had made up my mind; ‘I would train them all except the channel birds out to at least 250 miles. To make sure they had the knowhow for NEXT YEAR. The channel birds would just be paired with the view of getting as many youngsters as possible from my ‘BEST’ birds thereby taking advantage of their year ‘OFF’. ‘Helen’ and ‘Mary’ were not allowed to sit any longer than 3 days on eggs before switching them thus stopping them from casting their flights; which they would have done on the 2nd pair if they sat any longer than 8 days. With the result being I would be getting a pair of eggs every 12 days or so and both were paired to sons of each other so fantastic bloodlines.
Bloodlines
These hens were paired to my Number One and Number Two stock cocks when these sons were produced. The sire of ‘Helen’ paired to ‘Mary’ and the sire of ‘Mary’ paired to ‘Helen’ these young birds were my future, plus it was a great opportunity to further build a team around my 4 SNFC Silver Award winners; which has been an on-going process for me. I’m always trying to think ahead and I now had 24 young sprinters flying for 4 hours per day and looking fantastic. Then the training suspension was lifted and I decided to take my young sprinters along with the late breds and yearlings for a training toss. I was going 30 miles with the old birds and my idea was to drop off the young birds at 20 miles on the way. It was a ‘cracking’ day a southwest wind and so I just took them ALL to the 30 miles. The youngsters had already been all over the country for months and besides they would just follow the old bird’s home. James and I liberated the birds at Crawford, then headed home. On arriving home I got the shock of my life to see all 24 young birds home and on the loft a few minutes later the old birds turned up. Yes I thought ‘We have something here’- then I received word that we will get club racing maybe to the south coast of England. ‘Great I thought’ we were about 3 weeks before racing would start. James and I trained every day from 30 miles from the same place which is down the M74 I DO NOT train from the east with young birds or yearlings as I want my birds to navigate a line on the west side of the country. I have found that if you train young birds and late breds from the east they always come from the east for the rest of their lives which is no good to me. Living in the west section every toss was the same; with the young birds released just in front of the old birds with the old birds fighting to keep up with them. We had about 13 tosses before the weather turned bad and we could not train. Meanwhile I continued asking ‘Is there any chance of us getting across the channel’. We were never getting any information coming back to us, and then I had a glimmer of hope when I noticed the RPRA were going across the channel. It took a while before our officials received word we could go ahead with cross channel races. However there would only be ONE race from France; the Gold Cup event; thus stopping me from achieving the chance to get a SNFC Gold Award with ‘Helen’ or ‘Mary’ and another Silver hopefully with ‘Maid Marion’ which is what I named the half-sister of ‘Helen’ who won 18th section from Burdinne. So again I was disappointed but at least we would get the ‘Gold Cup’ race which is my main goal. I would need to start training the channel birds; I had been flagging them for one hour a day for about 3 weeks and they had each laid 3 sets of eggs each. The cocks were starting to drive them again and more next week. Hope you have enjoyed Walter’s short update on his preparation - tune in to next week’s Part 2 issue. Joe Murphy
Obituary
Bertie Anderson of Central Scotland
I am incredibly sad to share the news that Bertie Anderson sadly passed away last week. Bertie was a friend to everyone he met and made an impression on each of us, that had the pleasure to know him. He was an integral part of our federation always ready to lend a helping hand, and will be dearly missed.
Lynne Stewart Almond Valley Federation Secretary.
Joe’s Joke
BLOODY POLICE !!!... I'm bloody fuming...I just filled my car up with petrol and didn't notice I'd spilled some on my sleeve..... Going down the road, my mate lit a cigarette and my sleeve burst into flames, so I opened the window and stuck my arm out to try and extinguish the flames. The Police stopped me and are now arresting me.... for having a "Fire Arm" without a Licence....!!
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