“ON THE ROAD” WITH KEITH MOTT
BHW Blackpool ‘Show of the Year’ 2016
We all made the drive up to Blackpool in mid-January for the main event of the Show Racer calendar, the 44th British Homing World ‘Show of the Year’. Everyone anticipates and looks forward to this wonderful weekend in Blackpool, not only for their annual fill of ‘pigeon fun’, but mostly to meet up with good pigeon friends. This year’s event attacked a show entry of 2,000 birds and Roy Musto had the job of judging the special this time, including Best in Show. The Fancy Pigeons section celebrated their tenth year at the Blackpool show and it is full credit to Andy Lowe of Nottingham who runs the event every year. Andy has been a great worker in the fancy pigeon world for many years and over the last 25 years has run many shows at the Rushcliffe Leisure Centre in Nottingham, including the National Young Bird Show. The Blackpool Fancy Pigeons Best in Show winner was a Polish Lynx exhibited by David Richardson and Reserve BIS was a Norwich Cropper owned by Adrian Waldron. Best in Show over all at Blackpool was won by a young Show Racer mosaic cock owned by Jill and Dave Fisher of Bideford in Cornwall and when I spoke to Jill after the event she said, that the partners were thrilled to win Best in Show and this performance was their best to date. The handsome cock is now named, ‘Valentino’ and is a young bird champion in the truest sense of the word, winning: BIS South West SRS young bird show, then 1st in the all winners class to be nominated in to the BSRF class at Blackpool, to win that and Best in Show. A fantastic achievement!
Class winners at the 2016 BHW Blackpool ‘Show of the Year’ were: 1 (98 birds) J. & A. Bell: 2 (103 birds) The Wheatley Family: 3 (91 birds) N. J. Perry: 4 (92 birds) M. P. Moy: 5 (84 birds) The Wheatley Family: 6 (81 birds) H. Baugh & son: 7 (88 birds) J. & A. Bell: 8 (101 birds) P. Yates: 9 (54 birds) J. & A. Bell: 10 ( 53 birds) Coutts Brothers: 11 (54 birds) P. Little: 12 (53 birds) Edgar & A. & M. Wiggins: 13 (57 birds) Wallace & Ferguson: 14 ( 57 birds) T. Braithwaite: 15 (40 birds) E. Macpherson: 16 (64 birds) M/M A. Spedding: 17 (72 birds) J. & D. Fisher: 18 (74 birds) J. C. Robilliard: 19 (71 birds) J. & D. Fisher: 20 (45 birds) C. & C. Winter: 21 (50 birds) J. & A. Bell: 22 ( 12 birds) H. L. Dunkley: 23 ( 15 birds) A. Suckle: 24 (18 birds) McCord & Turpie: 25 (17 birds) E. & N. Yule: 26 (29 birds) Mackie & Knox: 27 (21 birds) T. & K. Mawhinney: 28 (32 birds) T. & K. Mawhinney: 29 (31 birds) Mackie & Knox: 30 (41 birds) T. & K. Mawhinney: 31 (38 birds) McCord & Turpie: 32 (41 birds) M/M A. Stretton: 33 (41 birds) M/M A. Stretton: 34 (29 birds) Miss K. Wright: 35 (22 birds) C. Coutts: 36 (36 birds) C. Coutts: 37 (34 birds) Master A. Woolgar.
Both Dave & Jill Fisher were born and brought up in and around the Bideford area and Jill’s dad is Mervyn Patt, an old friend of mine and he has been a pigeon fancier all his life. Jill’s first pigeon was a dark chequer cock given to her by her dad at around the age of three or four and she followed her dad into pigeon showing and initially entered Children’s classes at a very young age. Jill was later told that she apparently had the knack of always recognising her own bird at the show, much to her dad’s amusement. All through her childhood, Jill had pigeons and when she reached her teens, Mervyn provided her with a three or four pairs and a spare compartment and later her own loft to keep and look after her own birds. Family friend Percy Mitchell was also there on hand with a couple more birds to help with the mix and Jill was by then entering the open classes and one of her memories was of winning BIS at a Devon & Cornwall show at the age of 16, with a mealy hen. When she started work, other teenage interests in boys, music and clothes unfortunately distracted Jill from her birds and meant that she took a break from them, although she always had an interest and enjoyed the odd trip to a show with her dad when he was judging and needed a steward. In the mid 1970’s, dad had also started a racer stud and by the late 1990’s had run a stand at the Blackpool Show for many years on which he sold mainly racers, along with the odd few show racers. Around 1998, Mervyn asked Jill if she could help out on the stand as one of his normal helpers could not make it. She went and thoroughly enjoyed it, especially when it came to the few show racers that dad had included on his stand. She joined her dad again at Blackpool the following year and this time took along husband Dave as an extra pair of hands were needed. It was at the Blackpool stand in 2000 that Jill first saw an eye catching dark chequer show racer hen of her dad’s that she found she could not bear to put into the sale pen. Jill spent the whole of Saturday with the sale pen write-up for that chequer hen in her pocket. That Saturday night was the turning point and after much discussion, Jill and Dave decided to have a go at keeping a few show racers themselves, starting with a certain dark chequer hen! As a youngster, Dave was a keen football player and played for the North Devon team while he was at school and later played on his work’s football team. Jill has been in the sport 50 years overall, although there was a 20 year gap in the middle and for Dave it has been 16 years. Jill has never raced pigeons and has kept Show Racers only.
The partner’s current loft is 31ft long, divided into four 6ft x 6ft compartments, housing old cocks, young cocks, old hens and young hens separately. The remainder is split into two smaller sections, which can be opened up into one larger section as required. This extra space is used to house a few spare birds during the breeding season and acts as an over-flow, on the occasions where we have an in-balance in the ration of cocks to hens .The floors in each section are split between solid floor & grids. The grids are lifted and cleaned out at least once a week and the solid part of the floor is scrapped at least once a day. Along the front of the loft, each section has access to its own flight (traps) where the birds are bathed and enjoy the fresh air. During the winter, Perspex sheets are used on the front of these flights to prevent any strong drafts from catching the birds and these flights are generally closed at night and opened through the day unless conditions are really bad. Under the flights in the four main sections are the next boxes, which are boarded up when not in use. Along the back of the loft there is a 4ft wide corridor which contains some pens. This corridor is especially useful when basketing for a show as it gives plenty of space. Jill told me, ‘in a good loft design, I think it is important for both the birds and the fancier to be comfortable. If it is a pleasure to be in the loft yourself, I think you are more inclined to spend more time looking after the needs of the birds. We have used various methods of deep litter floor covering in the past but our preference is for the floors to be bare and scrapped each day. One of the many advantages of this is that you can instantly see any change in droppings’.
The Fisher partners keep 24 pairs of Show Racers and they are normally paired up in the first or second week in February. During the breeding season the birds are given a first class breeding mixture, with the addition of a strong mix of Maple Peas, Tic Beans and Tares. During the showing season the feeding id hardened up, so they are given mainly peas, beans and tares. The origins of our current show team were mainly from Mervyn Patt, but with crosses over the years from a few different show fanciers. Jill and Dave enjoy introducing a couple of new birds each year and experimenting with the results of crossing them with their existing team. They breed in the region of 45 to 50 young birds each season and Dave says they are very wary that for every young bird bred an old bird has to go, to keep the number manageable. Jill is currently Chairman of the Devon & Cornwall SRS and her occupation is in tooling sales and technical support for a multi-national connector manufacturer. Dave’s occupation is a postman / driver for an Agricultural company. Apart from Jill’s dad, one of her sisters, Denise and also two of her nieces are interested in the sport and have a small team of their own.
When I asked Jill about advising new starters in the sport she said, ‘firstly enjoy your time with your pigeons in the loft and go to as many shows as you can and look and listen. Listen to all points of view and advice; some you may agree with and some you may not but after a short time, you will soon find what methods of keeping your birds suit both you and them best. Extra tips from experienced fanciers will help along the way. When selecting birds to keep, remember that you are with them 365 days a year, so make sure that they pleasing to you first. The judge sees them for the day but you get to take them home afterwards’. The Fisher partners keep a range of colours and of the birds in there are a family and are related to some degree. Dave told me, ‘we only breed late breds in certain circumstances, for instance, where there is a particular pair that we would like an extra youngster from or may be where the pair took a while to settle down or did not produce early youngsters for some reason. Most of our birds are fairly quiet and this is a real bonus in the show pen’. Needless to say Jill and Dave think the moult is very important and give their birds a general feed mixture at this time of the year. General cleaning and regular baths are essential and their birds are parted in June. Congratulations to Jill and Dave on their wonderful Blackpool success!
John and Alice Bell of Catrine in Scotland had a brilliant 2016 Blackpool Show winning four first, several trophies and ‘Supreme Champion’. The Bell partnership started showing at Blackpool in 2003 and have won ‘Supreme Champion’ an amazing four times and have been runner up four times! This latest success has finished off a wonderful 2015/16 show season for them, when they have won several premier shows. This season’s ‘Supreme Champion’ was their good yearling blue chequer cock, ‘Bell’s Young Supreme’ and to qualify he won BIS at the RPRA Southern Region Show in November. I judged four Show Racer classes at the Region Show and John and Alice won three of them, with ‘Bell’s Young Supreme’ being one of those winners. This wonderful cock is a son of, ‘Bell’s Supreme’ the 2011 Blackpool ‘Supreme Champion’ winner and he in turn is a brother to, ‘Wild One’, the 2007 Blackpool ‘Supreme Champion’. What a fantastic family of Show Racers! The 2015/16 show season saw John and Alice enter seven open shows prior to the Blackpool show and they won six of them, including: Shildon Open Show, NEHU Open Show, Shildon BSRF Open Show, RPRA Southern Region Show, Clydesdale Open Show and SHU Open Show.
John finished with racing pigeons and concentrated solely on Show Racers in the 2006 season and won the Hurlford open show, recording his first Best in Show with his dark chequer cock, ‘Wild One’, bred from his ‘Old Silver Hen’. The following January this wonderful looking cock went to the BHW ‘Show of the Year’ at Blackpool and won ‘Supreme Champion’. Alice told me, this was the best day of their Show Racer life, to win the Supreme prize on their first attempt. It was a dream comes true! The Bell partners had three open show wins in the 2007 season, four more in 2008 and went on to win Reserve ‘Supreme Champion’ in 2009. In 2010 John and Alice had three major open show wins and so went to Blackpool with three birds in the Supreme Champion class. On entering the Winter Gardens on the Saturday morning they were amazed to see that their yearling Blue Chequer Cock had won his class and Best in Show, so was their fourth candidate in the Supreme Champion class. This cock’s nest mate won Supreme Champion and he was BIS, Reserve Supreme Champion. John told me he didn’t think this had ever been achieved before, with a nest pair winning the two premier prizes at Blackpool on the same weekend. Three of his Blackpool ‘Supreme Champions’ cocks were bred from a seven year old blue chequer cock bred by Darren Gibbons and he said, ‘it goes to prove that old pigeons can still breed champions’. John and Alice enjoyed a very successful 2011 show season, winning four open shows and qualified for the ‘Supreme Champion’ class at Blackpool in January 2012. With a lot of hard work this family of winning Show Racer has been formed from four pairs of original stock birds and the Bell partners told me it is well worth the effort when you win at the very top level with your own family of birds!
I asked John how he started up in pigeons and he told me, ‘I started with racing pigeons in 1974, at the age of nine and my first birds came from local fanciers, Eric Wilson of Mauchline who gave me two cocks and Sonny Mathieson who gave me two hens to mate to them. A year or so before that a friend of mine got some pigeons and I got hooked on them when I visited his garden. My parents agreed to allow me to keep some birds and with no experience I raced the whole young bird programme in 1975. I won my first race the following season and scored at the mighty Scottish National race from Rennes (552 miles), and I must say it was a great feeling! To breed and race birds that can race from France to Catrine, Ayrshire in the west of Scotland is a great buzz, as it is a very hard place to race pigeons too’.
John flew his birds until the 2000 season when sadly his friend and mentor, Louis Campbell, passed away. He was always keen on showing his racing pigeons and took then to events all over Scotland, where he was very successful in local and open shows. The Bell loft had four racing pigeons that had won open shows in the same year with over 500 birds competing, at that time, and qualified for the Supreme Champion of Great Britain class at Blackpool and won Reserve that year. Whenever he went to the big National shows he would spend long periods of time looking at the Show Racer and thought how great they looked. Alice used to go with John to the big shows and she also took a liking the wonderful looking show birds, so they both decided to get a few and give proper showing a go. The first Show Racers were brought in, in 2002 and quality specimens proved very difficult to obtain. He was lucky to know, Raymond Murphy of Cambuslang in Glasgow, who was a very good showman who was going out of the sport, and was having a clearance sale. John visited Raymond’s loft and purchased a five year old silver hen and her son, which was a three year old silver blue cock, both being top quality. Other birds were obtained including a young blue chequer cock from Darren Gibbons of Grimsby. In the 2002 season the ‘Old Silver Hen’ won three big open shows and her son, the silver blue cock, won two classes at open events. John and Alice went to the RP ‘Old Comrades’ where the young chequer cock won his class and went on to win the Best Young Bird at the Scottish East Region Society Show, then went forward to Blackpool to represent the Society in the BSRF class. The 2003 season saw more good success with several open show wins with racing and show birds. John told me that Alice was very instrumental in the success as she spent a lot of time with the birds and made them very tame. They responded really well to her and sit on her head and feed from her hand. John maintains making her a full pigeon partner was one of the best things he ever did, as she manages the loft when he is working, cleaning out and feeding the birds.
John and Alice have two 24ft x 8ft lofts, which have a nice 3ft wire flight running along the front so the birds can get out in the weather and bath, and these are cleaned out by Alice twice a day. John works long hours and says a lot of loft management is down to his partner, which includes cleaning out the lofts as many times as ten times a day on the build up to big shows. He maintains this cleaning out is very important as the birds don’t have to be lifted and pulled about to clean their feet on basketing for the shows. Alice told me that if the bird’s feet are not cleaned on basketing day they look nice and powdery and not an unnatural pink. The birds are bathed at the beginning of the week and no litter is used on the loft floors. John mixes his own corn and this has a big maple pea content, and the birds are never fed condition seed. The pigeons are never fed maize prior the going to show, as Alice maintains it makes the candidates loose and messy in the pen. The twelve pairs birds are mated up in late February as the partners like to enter two open Society shows which are after the Blackpool show at the back end of January. No stock birds are kept as all birds are shown and about 60 young birds are bred each, which are brought down to about twelve just before the show season begins. John told me, ‘I enjoy judging and have no favourite colour, when judging or in my own loft. I just love good quality Show Racers, whatever their colour! Showing is very hard work and to get a team ready for a big National event it can take up to a month to get them right. Our best ever Show Racer is the Darren Gibbons blue chequer cock and although we don’t keep stock birds, he is our main breeder, being the sire of many winners. I’ve lost count of the many open shows he has won and he has also won several times at the RP ‘Old Comrades’ Show and the BHW Blackpool Show. I would like to finish this article by saying how important Alice’s hard work is to our good success with our Show Racers. She is a wonderful pigeon fancier’. John & Alice Bell own one of the top Show Racer lofts in the UK at this time!
This year I judged for my fourth time at the Blackpool Show and handled Class 2, which was the biggest class on the night with 103 Show Racer hens. It was hard, but very enjoyable and the Wheatley Family of the North East of England won my class with a beautiful Mosaic hen. It was nice to have my ol’ mate, Peter Taylor, back scoring for me at the Blackpool Show, as he doesn’t get to many shows these days. My other mate, Terry Haley has had a few health problems in recent months and was particularly good to see him there judging with his friend, Mick. It wasn’t a great weekend for me personally! Without going through a really boring account of events, I was not well and had to go home on the Saturday. Needless to say, it was most disappointing for me as I didn’t meet up with every one, which for me, is the main reason for driving the 260 miles up to Blackpool.
Well that’s it for this week! I can be contacted with any pigeon ‘banter’ on telephone number: 01372 463480
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TEXT & PHOTOS BY KEITH MOTT (www.keithmott.com)
