“ON THE ROAD” WITH KEITH MOTT
Allen & Jackie Palmer of Esher
It’s always great to see one of the sport’s really outstanding workers do well racing their pigeons! I joined the Esher & District RPC in the mid 1980’s and in all my time the main ‘spearhead’ in the club has been the secretary, Allen Palmer. He has been club secretary and President for most of that time and has pretty much guided it through the years into the great organization it is today. In all my time in the club Allen, with a lot of help from his wife Jackie, has organized the Esher club’s annual prize presentation evenings, which have always been a great occasions. Both Allen and Jackie are from pigeon racing families, with both their late fathers, Bill Palmer and Dennis Nightingale, being outstanding fanciers and founder members of the Esher club. Allen has worked in the building trade most of his life and in recent years his firm re-build the new West End Sports & Social Club complex where the Esher pigeon club has been based for many years. He has also done a lot of work in the Boy Scout movement over the years and is a first class cricketer.
Allen has been hard work for me personally over the years, because he hates publicity and when it came to an article, it’s been like getting ‘blood out of a stone’. Allen is a natural ‘Channel’ racing man through and through, and has won his fair share over the years with his pigeons, including firsts in the Federation. One of his best seasons racing was in 2008, when he won the Three Borders Federation twice, from Yelverton and West Bay, with his two natural cocks, ‘Billy Blue’ and ‘West Ender’. The 2016 racing season was a particularly good one for the Allen Palmer loft at West End, with him winning several premier positions, including 1st Three Borders Federation Alencon (203 miles) on a really hard racing day. At the end of the season he lifted a lot of silverware in the Federation, including: Cooper Challenge Trophy (winner longest OB race), Longest OB Race Trophy (second Combine race winner), Gazzette Perpetual Trophy (best average two longest OB races), Fred Mott Memorial Cup (best average longest OB & YB races), Late A. Knight Trophy (continental average winner) and was runner up for two other Federation trophies. Well done to the Palmer family! The photo accompanying this article show Allen with his trophies and his granddaughter, Ottilie Palmer Davis, who won the OB & YB ‘Novice Trophies’ in the Esher club in the 2016 season.
The competition in the Three Borders Federation was strong and hard in the 2016 season, and once again the mighty Esher & Dist. RPC came out on top, winning the ‘Federation Points’ Trophy’, with 173 points. The club has won the championship eight times in the last twelve years and this time the runners up were the Spelthorne club, on 161 point. It is common knowledge that the Esher is a very strong club, sending up to 350 birds a week and in most races, short or long, members have to more or less win the Federation to win the club. Needless to say the Esher member’s presence is very strong in the Federation results and they won 128 racing positions, including nine 1st Federation winners in the 2016 season. A fantastic club performance! The Esher club must rate as one of the premier clubs in the south of England and is dripping with top quality fanciers who are hell bent on winning the Three Borders Federation every weekend. Congratulations to the Esher lads!
Terry & Sue Leonard of Carshalton.
I first met Terry Leonard a few years ago when he came to my home in Claygate to have several of his Federation winners photographed and ever since he has continued to do well in the Federation and Combine results. Flying in the strong Ashridge club, members of the Three Borders Federation he has put some good performances in the 2016 racing season, with the highlights being: 1st club Honiton, 2nd club, 20th Federation, 26th SMT Combine Falaise (1,591 birds), 1st club Blandford, 1st club, 10th Federation Yeovil (769 birds), 1st club, 3rd Federation Yeovil (878 birds), 4th, 5th, 6th club, 19th, 21st, 22nd Federation Exeter (651 birds).
Terry Leonard started up in pigeons at the age of twenty in 1978 and previous to that, was good friends at school with, Dave and Mick, the pigeon racing White Brothers of Epsom. After they had all left school Dave White moved into the house opposite Terry and after a few visits to Dave’s pigeon loft he caught the pigeon racing ‘bug’. Terry’s father had local pigeon racer Mick Heasman working with him and he presented some late bred youngsters to the young Terry too start him off in the sport. His first club was the Epsom Downs FC and his first loft was a 10ft x 6ft two section structure lashed up out of a load of wooden pallets that he had purchased for £10. They also straighten out the nails from the pallets and used then again! Terry and his dad built the loft, but he says, they were not carpenters and the shed reflected the fact! He also obtained birds from local Epsom fanciers including Dave and Micky White, Johnny Reynolds and Andy Norman, which started to win races from the outset. His early mistake was over feeding, but some of Terry’s early successes racing in the Epsom club were: 1st & 2nd club Blandford, 2nd club Vire and 1st club Bergerac. The fanciers who first impressed him with their performance was Bobby and Ken Besant of New Malden, who at that time were winning the Federation out of turn and in later years the late Ewell ‘ace’, Doug Walker. Doug was the first fancier to race on the widowhood system in the Epsom club and notched up countless winners in the early 1980’s. Terry race well with his ‘Heinz 57’ birds for several seasons and got more serious when Andy Norman bred him some pedigree Pol Bostyn stock birds. Andy put him in contact with Cliff Dobson of Idle Bradford and he had some of the first direct Bostyn pigeons in the UK, and Terry won well with them.
Terry now races in partnership with his wife, Sue, to their loft in Carshalton and when he was interested in sprint racing he was very successful racing the Paul Arnold / Staf Van Reets pigeons. One of his best sprinters was the Staf Van Reet mealy cock, ‘Taunton Boy’ and he was bred from stock obtained from Paul Arnold and Vic Emberson. This brilliant cock won 1st Federation Taunton, 1st Federation Portland, 1st Federation Taunton and was 2nd Federation Taunton, being beaten by his nest mate when they dropped on the loft together. Brilliant pigeons! The current loft is an ‘L’ shaped Kidby style structure and is very well ventilated with chimneys in the roof. Terry races his cocks on the widowhood system and these are housed in two sections with a glass frontage. These sections are very spacious and he tells me he never keeps more than eight cocks in each parting. He has 30 young birds to race each season and these live in a nice 6ft x 6ft section. Terry tells me he stole his wife’s 8ft x 6ft garden shed to house his 12 pairs of stock birds and now her new replacement shed has also been taken over for extra young bird accommodation. What sort of man is he! Deep litter is used in the young bird compartments and Terry tells me, since he started using the litter he has not had young bird sickness. He thinks the main factors behind good health in the pigeons is a well ventilated and bone dry loft.
He races the widowhood system and says he has tried various feeding systems, breaking down, not breaking down, but now feeds a light mixture at the beginning of the week and a high carbohydrate strong mixture for the last couple of days before the race. He doesn’t show the hens to the racing cocks on marking night, but is a great believer in leaving the hens with their mates on their return from the race, some times several hours. The cocks are trained well before racing, but never after it has started, only exercising around the loft for an hour twice a day. They stay on the widowhood right through the season, but Terry says he will try re-pairing for the longest race at some time and see if this improves the results. He told me resting pigeons after a hard fly is very important, as some times they look OK, but are they alright inside? The loft has won many premier positions in the Federation, Combine and Classic through the years including 2000: London Federation young bird average, 2007: 10th open L&SECC Tours, 2008: 7th open L&SECC Guernsey (2), 2010: 1st SMT Combine Fougeres (215 miles), plus many times 1st Federation.
The Leonard loft’s three top racers were: ‘Fougeres Express’ a two year old widowhood blue chequer cock and he won 1st Woodside FC, 1st Surrey Federation, 1st SMT Combine Fougeres, lifting the ‘Eric Matthews Trophy’. This game cock was a Romani Janssen / Kees Bosua cross and his sire won 1st Federation twice. The Combine winner was bred down from a wonderful line of winners, with his mother winning the Federation as a young bird and his grand sire winning seven times 1st club, three times 1st Surrey Federation and 1st SMT Combine. A brilliant family of winners! ‘Mr. Consistent’ another two year old blue chequer Romani Janssen / Kees Bosua widowhood cock and he had won a list of premier prizes in the Federation and L&SECC. ‘The Blue Boy’ a nine year old blue cock bred from the Paul Arnold bloodlines and is a grand son of Paul’s champion Staf Van Reet stock cock, ‘The Guvnor’. This great old widowhood cock won several top prizes including 1st Surrey Federation Portland and 2nd Surrey Federation Messac.
The two main families kept at the Leonard’s loft these days are Kees Bosua and Romani Fitzhugh Janssen, which have raced well pure and crossed. The stock birds are paired up in December and the first round of eggs are floated under the widowhood cocks. Terry visited Kees Bosua’s loft with some friends who were purchasing stock birds in 2005 and all the Leonard birds are bred from those purchases. Terry currently races about 40 young birds every season and is a great believer in schooling them well, by giving them many 30 miles plus training tosses before their first race. He puts his young birds on the ‘darkness’ system, giving them nine hours day light every day and they are taken off on the 21st June. He races them to the perch and they are allowed to pair up to motivate them for racing. The youngsters are raced through the programme to the longest race, Wadebridge (214 miles).
Robertson & Vaizey of Portsmouth.
I first heard the name of Robertson & Vaizey in May of 2010 when they won their first ever Classic race that they had competed in and it was funny that it was my first race as convoyer for the Central Southern Classic Flying Club! I completed my first convoying stint for the CSCFC in mid-May and I must say it was one of the most enjoyable trips I’ve had to France with the birds. One of the main reasons that got me out of retirement and start convoying again that season, was the prospect of visiting some new liberation sites and our first destination was Messac, which is on the west side of France, midway between Rennes and Nantes. I was very impressed with liberation site at Messac and I think it is fair to say it was one of the best sites I’ve visited in France.
With the North West element in the wind the first three in the open result were clocked in the Portsmouth area and Steve Vaizey and Barry Robertson who won the race handsomely! The partners clocked their Vandenbeele blue cock to record a velocity of 1298 ypm and won the Classic by a clear 11ypm. Brilliant pigeon racing! The day after the race Steve said, ‘I’m still recovering from winning the Messac Classic and the feelings great! We are only back garden flyers and last year we won all the Milton HS old bird averages and the combined average, plus the Solent Federation old bird average, three longest race average and combine average with just ten cocks and eleven hens. Our pigeons are flown on the roundabout system, so we can race both cocks and hens. Our Messac Classic winner had every Solent Federation race in his preparation and flew the BBC Vire race the weekend before his win’. I spoke to Steve on the phone to arrange this loft article and he told me we have met many years ago. It turns out he is the son of the late Len Vaizey of Kingston and we met when he was a lad in the early 1970’s.
Barry and Steve kept only a small team of pigeons and race both cocks and hens on the roundabout system, with everything racing every week through the Federation programme. The racers were normally shown their mate on marking day and were trained up to the first or second race. The birds were not broken down until the longer races come up and as the races got longer the racers got their mates for longer on their return on a Saturday afternoon. Barry told me, ‘We are not in to long distance racing yet, but our birds race well and win at Federation level up to Bergerac, which is 417 miles to our loft in Portsmouth’. The partners raced about 40 young birds each season and these were put on the dark system from weaning until mid-June. They were trained well up to 25 miles and allowed to pair up if they want to. Steve said, ‘our youngsters are race through the full programme to test them and what ever is left at the end is worth keeping’.
The twenty pairs of stock birds were kept at Steve’s home and he was the breeding manager, which was based on the eyesign method. He told me, ‘I’m mad on the eyesign theory and all our stock selection and pairings are mainly based on the pigeon’s eyesign. I have learnt that there is more to it than any one knows with the different theories and I’m just beginning to have my own. Our CSCFC Messac winner, ‘Blazing 22’, was the result of a pure 100% eyesign pairing and it takes two good eyes to produce winners, meaning you might have lots of good eyesign pigeon in the stock loft, but the secret is knowing which eye to mate to what eye to produce the winners’. The partners were friends with Keith Arnold of Leamington Spa and they race his Staf Van Reets with outstanding success, and also Jack and Lee Madgin’s Vandenabeele and Soontjen pigeons. The stock birds were paired up at Christmas time, but because their young bird loft only coped with about 50 youngsters comfortably, their only took one round off the breeders. Barry and Steve both believed in line breeding and inbreeding, but say at the end of the day, if you have two outstanding families they need to be crossed at some stage. Barry told anybody starting up in the sport that a well ventilated loft and well bred stock birds are the most important factor for success.
Although the partners have won the Federation many times, they maintain 2nd open BBC Messac and their 1st open CSCFC Messac wins are their best performances to date. Steve won a training race in the Sun City Million Dollar Race on 1st December 2007 and then lead the UK averages in the final and 12th in the world averages with his good pigeon, ‘Bramble’. Up to recent seasons Barry and Steve have been basically Federation flyer, but have decided to have a go at National and Classic racing. They told me three great local fanciers are ‘Bomber’ Mellis, Jason Ross and Albie Webb, and if you have a pigeon in front these lads you have a good one!
Barry had been in the sport 50 years and as a lad used to catch strays from the local church tower. His first club was the Portsmouth north road and his first top pigeon was in 1979, a red cock from John Parrack’s ‘Polly’. Barry’s success story really started when he introduced the Les Davenport / Cattrysse pigeons in 1980 and the Keith Arnold / Cattrysse in 1999. Steve was born in to pigeons with his father, Len, being a successful fancier in the Molesey and Kingston clubs in the early 1070’s and his first ace bird was a red cock from Trussler Brothers of Molesey, which won the Surrey Federation. Through the years Steve has had various strains but liked the Delbars and Kempeneers in the 1980’s, and had some good results with them. He told me he has had some bad luck with his pigeons and years ago he had a pigeon home to win the Young Bird National from Guernsey, but flew around with a batch of pigeons in the next street for five minutes!
That our article for this week. I can be contacted me with any pigeon ‘banter’ on telephone number: 01372 463480 or email me on
TEXT & PHOTOS BY KEITH MOTT
(www.keithmott.com)
