“ON THE ROAD” WITH KEITH MOTT.
British Homing World Blackpool Show (Part 2.).
The 2019 British Homing World Blackpool Show attacked a show entry of 2,000 birds and ‘Best in Show’ over all at the Winter Gardens was won by a beautiful Show Racer silver blue cock owned by Darren Christie of Dunaghy in Northern Ireland. Darren has named his champion cock, ‘Barney’, and tells me he has had a lot of good wins previously, including ‘Best in Show’ at the INFC Show in Lisburn in 2017 and also won ‘Best in Show’ at an open show the week after the 2019 Blackpool event. He named his silver blue cock after his friend, John Barnes, who gifted him a silver blue hen which was his dam and his sire was blue cock bred through gift pigeons from Jimmy Fitzpatrick of Cambuslang in Scotland.
When I asked Darren what he looks for in a Show Racer he told me, ‘what I look for in a pigeon is a good darker eye, nice strong colour, pear shape in the hand and a good strong head. At present my birds are my own family and to create this family, I obtained birds from James Fitzpatrick, Alistair Tankard and John Barnes’. Darren was 12 years old when he started up in pigeons, the main reason being because his next door neighbour, Andy McCook, kept pigeons and he has now been in the sport 30 years. He obtained his first stock from Thomas Rouke and he gave Darren a pair of mealies to start him off and his first winner was a mealy hen. Thomas Rouke, Harry Spratt and Fitzpatrick & Fleming drew his attention on their performances in the early years. T. & K. Mawhinney of Ireland have a wonderful family of blue pied racing pigeons and they won ‘Best Racer in Show’ twice at the BHW Blackpool Show, first time winning ‘Best Racer in Show’ in 2014, both with blue pied cocks. Darren’s first successes were achieved with the Thomas Rouke and the Fitzpatrick & Fleming pigeons, when competing in the Northern Ireland Show Racer Society and his first loft was 10ft x 6ft, with two sections. He considers T. K. Mawhinney who shows Racing Pigeons to be the best fanciers in his area and he is a good friend, who gives Darren advice and help when needed. Darren was in partnership with Thomas Rouke for twelve years and they were known as Rouke and Christie. He tells novice to get pigeons from top fancier and look at different loft set up before choosing they own loft set up. Darren works as a council worker and is a part-time DJ, and told me his biggest thrill in his time as a pigeon fancier was winning ‘Best in Show’ at the BHW Blackpool Show.
The Scottish racing partnership of John McCord and Terry Turpie won ‘Supreme Champion’ at the 2019 BHW Blackpool Show with their super blue racing cock, ‘Moerbreke Blue Boy’ and to say he is very special would be an understatement. Talking to John on the phone he told me, ‘we have called the blue cock ‘Moerbeke Blue Boy’, after our good friend Stefan van Moerbeke, who sadly lost his life in a car crash on 29th April 2017 on the out skirts of Ypres in Belgium, which was his home town. How I meet Stefan was though the Ypres race, which the Scottish National Flying Club has every season. Stefan was the man who got this race point started along with Roy Seaton and I was the convoyer with the pigeons. We struck up a good friendship with him and his family who looked after us to perfection on our trips to Ypres. ‘Moerbeke Blue Boy’ was a latebred in 2016 and stood out like a sore thumb from day one, being raced lightly in 2017 and flew the Fife Federation program in 2018. His breeding is: his sire is a grandson of the late John Ellis of Wellbank near Dundee good black pied hen paired to a daughter of ‘Andy’s Boy’, winner of 1st open London & South East Classic Club Pau for Alister Muir of Abinger Hammer in Surrey. His dam is a daughter of ‘Kingdom Spirit’ raced by George and Brian Hunter of Dunfermline Fife and she is probably one of the best 500 plus mile racing pigeons about, winning two ‘Gold Awards’ with the Scottish National Flying Club and flew ten times across the English Channel in to Scotland. There has only ever been two pigeon in history to be double ‘Gold Award’ winners’.
Two previous winners of ‘Best in Show’ at BHW Blackpool Show, Harry & Tony Baugh of Hodnet and Jill & David Fisher of Bideford, enjoy some more outstanding success at the 2019 event. Tony Baugh won three classes at the 2019 show to follow his ‘Best in Show’ success in 2018. Chatting to Tony after the event in 2018 he said, that his late father, Harry, would have been thrilled to win Best in Show at Blackpool for the second time. Tony told me the cock was bred by Alistair Tankard and is now named ‘Koster King’. This beautiful pigeon had only had two shows that season, winning first at the Midlands Show Racer Society show, which qualified him for Blackpool, where he had recorded the Baugh loft’s second ‘Best in Show’ win. Jill and David Fisher won ‘Best in Show’ in 2016 and at the 2019 show they won two classes. Their ‘Best in Show’ at Blackpool in 2016 was won by a young Show Racer mosaic cock and when I spoke to Jill at that time she said, that the partners were thrill to win Best in Show and this performance was their best to date. The handsome cock was named, ‘Valentino’ and was a young bird champion in the truest sense of the word, winning: BIS South West SRS young bird show, then was first in the all winners class to be nominated in to the BSRF class at Blackpool, to win that and ‘Best in Show’.
Lester Petty and Phillip Crawford are one of the leading Show Racer partnerships in the UK in recent years and they set a new record at the 2018 BHW Blackpool Show, by winning six classes in that show. I believe the previous record was held by Doug McClary and he won five classes. One of their best seasons was in 2011 when they won BIS and BOS at the RPRA Southern Region Show and also won BIS at the Dome Show, with a beautiful silver hen which was one of their most successful birds, also winning her class at many shows. Les and Phil ended that season winning class one (old cocks) at the BHW Blackpool Show and in the last seven years they have won class one four times. Last year they broke the record at Blackpool by winning six classes.
I recently met up with Les at the recent RPRA Southern Region Show and he told me, ‘I first met Phil Crawford when we both lived in Aylesbury back in 1998 and I was keen to acquire some show racers, and Colin Hill introduced me to Phillip. At that time Phil was very friendly with the late Paul Rogers and a lot of his birds had come from Paul. Phil gifted me my first show racers and Paul bred me six young birds, one a red hen called ‘600’, because of her ring number, bred me some really successful birds. I showed for a couple of years on my own and won my first class at the BHW Blackpool Show in 2000 with a mosaic cock bought from the sales class at the RP ‘Old Comrades’ show. We formed the partnership in 2002 and not long after that Phil moved to Wales and I moved to Northampton. We thought it would mean we could show in two societies so we joined the Monmouth and also remained members of the Midlands which we have continued to do until this day’.
Back in October 2014 I received a letter from the RPRA, inviting me to judge at the BHW ‘Show of the Year’, Blackpool and I was delighted to except, as I have always loved do the job and consider it a great honour to be asked. This was my third time judging at the premier show in the UK and the last time I judged was in 2007 when the BBC sent a film crew to the Winter Gardens to film me and Peter Taylor for the ‘Inside Out’ programme. I then received a phone call in December from the Blackpool Show committee inviting me to take on the premier judging job in the show world, to judge the specials and Blackpool Show ‘Best in Show’. I have been judging at top National and Show Society shows for 40 years and to judge ‘Best in Show’ at Blackpool was the crowning glory of all those years doing the job. I was highly delighted and accepted the invitation immediately. My ol’ mate, Peter Taylor, has travelled all over the UK as my steward for many years, but in recent times has not travelled because of his ‘dodgy’ knees, but I managed to get him to Blackpool to steward for me, on this great occasion. We knew the Friday of the show was going to be a hard day, with the 250 mile drive up to the Hilton Hotel in Blackpool, then attend the RPRA dinner that evening and after that the late night judging in the Winter Gardens.
It was late when we arrived at the Winter Gardens, just before 23.00hrs I think, and we were greeted by chief steward, Dora Pounder, and what a nice lady she was! Dora has been doing the job at the Blackpool Show for many years and was so efficient, directing us to all the pen numbers to sort out the show specials. On arrival, I took the first ten minutes to set up my filming equipment to record the judging on auto and finished up with a brilliant 14 minutes personal DVD of the whole weekend. There was the usual gang of show stewards in attendance and I must say a big ‘thanks’ to them all, as they were there in the middle of the night, waiting to feed and lock up the birds. I spent quite some time judging the 29 class winner and needless to say I went through them with a fine tooth comb! From the outset of judging there was only one winner of Best in Show, a wonderful Show Racer red hen and she was medium appled bodied, with good balance and brilliant feather quality. I loved the hen as soon as I picked her out of Pen 4 and from then on she was the one the others had to beat! A beautiful mealy was her runner up, but I found a major fault in her on her second handling and Reserve Best in Show went to a stunning looking Show Racer blue chequer hen. I gave Best Racer to a handsome pencil blue pied cock and although it wasn’t confirmed, I was told it might have won at the Blackpool Show in 2013. It was a great judging session to remember and we finished just before 01.00hrs, after which we jump in a taxi and went back to the Hilton Hotel. It was a very long day and I finally got to bed just after 02.00hrs! John Robilliard of Bodmin in Cornwall owned that wonderful red hen and had recorded his second Best in Show at the BHW Blackpool Show. I was so delighted to hear that great news, as John has given a life time’s work to our sport and deserves every success he has with his wonderful Show Racers. Talking to John after the event, he said, the hen is now called ‘Rocquaine Queen’ and she won as a young bird, and won a first at the Duchy Show in November 2013. She was bred from a pair of stock birds that John obtained at the Ken Jeffery of St Ives dispersal sale. John and Alice Bell of Scotland had a fantastic Blackpool Show winning: ‘Supreme Champion’, Reserve Best in Show and Best Opposite Sex. After nearly 50 years judging at National and Society pigeon shows, including five times at Blackpool, that was my highlight to judge ‘Best in Show’ at the BHW Blackpool Show!
The sad news is, the BHW Blackpool Show in January 2021 had to be cancelled because of the Covid 19 pandemic. The Blackpool Show committee being the forward thinking organization it is has not taken this laying down and have organized an alternative event for the showing fraternity in January. Full details to be published later! I can be contacted on telephone number: 01372 463480 and email:
TEXT & PHOTOS BY KEITH MOTT (www.keithmott.com)
