KINGDOM RACING PIGEON ASSOCIATION
by Stuart Bowman
In the Kingdom's last notes I forgot to mention Peter Patrick of Thornton's great performance from Saintes 728mls with the NFC. Peter timed his Chq WF hen in at 5.33pm the day after liberation and was nearly caught out. The NFC convoy of approx 5,300 were away at 6.05 am into a light Variable wind changing to west then North West en route. Pete had a bowling cup tie on with his club mates and he asked Pete Penman snr if he would step in and watch the loft while he was away. Pete duly obliged, but unfortunately no pigeons were home when Peter returned from his Bowls match which, by the way, he lost. Peter was a little fed up at his team not progressing to the Final as they have performed well in all competitions this season. However, after a short blether Pete Penman snr went away wishing Pete the best of luckand Peter thanked him for watching the loft. Peter then cleaned out his lofts and was halfway through cleaning out the Y.Bs when he saw a pigeon alight on the Y.B loft. Peter came out wondering why this Y.B was down as it should have been flying with the team. Then he noticed it was a pigeon from Saintes! Quickly the pigeon was timed and Peter was a happy man!
After timing, Peter thought about what his old friend the late great Jimmy Hamilton said. Hammy continually advised him to enter birds for the Saintes race as he felt he had the pigeons to do well and maybe even win it! How right he was, and the only regret Peter has is that his old pal is not here to see it today, having only passed away in February. It was Jimmy Hamilton who was one of the main initiators of the Saintes race and how fitting is it now that Peter Patrick will collect the SNRPC Silver Medal sponsored by Jimmy! Peter also now claims 1st Section M in the National Flying Club, a new Section set up for Scottish fanciers who want to compete at the greater distance. The race was not an easy one with fanciers many miles shorter struggling to time in.
Peter Patrick's Silver Star, 1st Sect M, NFC Saintes 728mls, and 1st Open SNRPC. Also a winner of 20th Open Reims and 4th Open Lessay SNRPC.
Peter's timer was a 4y Chq wf hen sent sitting 14 days and half way up on her second flight. As a Y.B she went out to Wakefield 184mls. As a yearling to Maidstone 370mls. As a 2yo she won 4th Open SNRPC Lessay on a hard day with not many in that day. As a 3yo last year she won 20th Open SNRPC Reims Gold Medal race 564mls. This year she had Otterburn 78mls, Ripon 154mls, Leicester 258mls, Huntingdon 288mls before flying Reims. Then after this she only had 2 tosses one from Auchendinny near Penicuick, and one from Peas Bay, near Cockburnspath.
The Chq wf hen now named “Silver Star” is a small to medium hen with good silky feathering and was very keen to get back on her eggs when I was there next day to verify her. She was a very difficult pigeon to snap a picture of, and both Peter and I put it down to her keenness to get back to her eggs.
Her sire is a cock which is a full brother to Peter's 6th Open Clermont SNFC, when paired to a Padfield and Family hen. This Padfield hen is also Grand Dam of Peter's 2nd Open SNRPC Cholet 636mls 2005. The Dam is a daughter of Survivor 2nd Open Nantes for the late John Trail, when paired to a cock which flew Niort twice 690mls. So there you have it readers, a well bred pigeon from an established fancier. Congratulations again Peter from the KRPA members on a fine performance to celebrate your 70th birthday only a couple of days earlier!
Must also quickly mention Wullie and Maureen Smith from Macmerry who also timed in from the race flying 712mls to win 2nd Sect M. Their timer known as “77 Sunset Strip” is a 7 y Chq wf cock normally raced on round about but sent to this race on 17 day eggs. This pigeon is no stranger to success and has already won 41st Open in a hard SNRPC Lessay race and 117th Open SNRPC Reims. Well done! In our own small select contingent Joe Lewcio of Alloa also recorded one as did Jocky King and I believe this is the same Blue hen he was 5th Open SNRPC a few weeks earlier from the hard Messac race 578mls. Well done to all who got birds home and to all who supported the race. I know that NFC fanciers, particularly the Northern section fanciers are very pleased that an entry was sent and that there has been some success with the above fanciers! Hopfully this will incourage more fanciers to send next year to this 700 plus mile race point. We shall see.
In the last notes I said I would get some info from Ian McClaren on his Reims pigeon which won 3rd Association 12th Open SNRPC. This pigeon was indeed a 3yo chq cock which as a y.b went to the Open race from Wakefield 187mls. As a yearling he scored in the Kingdom Open race from Wanstead Flats 345mls. As a 2yo he won 58th Open Portsmouth SNRPC on a tricky day winning the nom in the sect. This year he had Whitton Castle, 120mls, Leciester 260mls, then SNRPC Wanstead Flats 345mls and the come back race from Otterburn 78mls. He was then sent sitting 10 day eggs. He was bred by John Proctor and is in fact the nest brother to Jim Benvies Double National winner Kingdom Boy 1st Open Reims and 1st Open Lessay.
John Anderson of Anstruther was 4th Association and 14th Open SNRPC from Reims with a 5y chq hen who had no training. She had been raced on round about and had 3 races to Huntingdon 290mls. She has now won 3 times from Reims having previously won 39th and 51st Open. A half brother and sister to this hen have also won from the channel. The sire is a cock which came from a Mr Clark from South Wales. The Dam came from Sam Ovens from pigeons containing lines from Robert Cormack and Phi Lynch with a 3rd and 4th Open Nantes in the Breeding.
While talking about the SNRPC channel races it would not go amiss to thank the control team for their efforts this year everyone is agreed they got it right. The Convoyer Mathew Boyle has done a wonderfull job with the pigeons returning in excellent condition. Mathew is a tireless worker with the pigeons in his care he goes out of his way to help them in any way he can. Nothing is too much trouble for him. He is worth his weight in gold.
Mathew was the Convoyer at the Arras race when the Kingdom had their Open race convoyed by the Scottish National Racing Pigeon and thanks to Mathew and the race control team George Wilson Ken Buchannan and Ian McClaren we eventually had a success overall race. Ian McClaren has again asked me to thank the following people for their help. Pam Grange, UNC, Chris Padham, Guernsey, Steve Profit and Fred McCluskey, UNC, Mick Brennan and anyone else who helped in any way.
The Association got their Y.B program underway from St. Boswells on 3.8.08 after the first race was cancelled to horrendous weather. I don’t want to slate the Controller but this turned out to be a very hard race with a lot of losses. What went wrong no one knows for sure. One theory is that a lot of pigeons went west, most of them not returning. There was a lot of heavy rain about and this I’m sure contributed to these youngsters going way off line. In fact the rain forecast on the day was not meant to be anywhere near as heavy as it was. Some of this rain was like the stuff you see when you are abroad, just unbelievable. Well before 6am contact was made with Norman Renton of Reston and the convoyer. Contact was also made with Wilf Flockhart of Tranent just after 6.20 am. Visibility was not good at Soutra Hill, which is where most of the pigeons should have came over en route on that day. Contact was made again with Norman Renton with everything fine in his area and at the race point. Wilf Flockhart called back at 7.20am and advised to cancel liberation at 7.30. as the weather had suddenly deteriated. Wilf was also in liaison with a fancier only 2-3 mls from Soutra who reported that there was some unusually heavy Thundery showers. The Convoyer had to get everything back on track and put water on again and wait for word to liberate. The birds didn’t get away for another 4 hours. There was some horrendous rain as witnessed by the Convoyer later at the race point and in the areas above him. Reports also from other fanciers in the line of flight of extremely heavy rain and showers. Although there was more good weather in some of these areas in between the disruption. With the good weather in between and the sun shining at the race point you could see the picture. It seemed it was a matter of trying to avoid these unusually heavy outbursts. To cut a very long story short the 1,046 birds were away at 11.30 am into a SW wind. Everything was fine at the race point but the birds split into two batches, one headed west and the other in a northerly direction. The weather at the time of liberation at Soutra was ok, however the weather at Pathhead was not and it was not known about. Later in the evening there were reports of a number of small batches of 10 or 12 pigeons seen heading back into Fife from the West. I just wonder leading up to this race we had some sticky thundery days, and on some of them it rained really heavy. I felt that on the day of the race it was still a little thundery, or something in the air (not rain) although a bit fresher. One thing I feel may be wrong was that there was not enough well trained pigeons in the convoy from the first race, which we know can be sticky sometimes even in good weather. Maybe if the first race was say 60-80mls fanciers would have to train them a bit more. I know that when I send some pigeons to Otterburn for their first race 77mls, I usually get very good returns. However with these pigeons I have took my time and they have been pretty well schooled out to 30mls several times. I would be wasting my time sending them there if they were only trained 15mls. We as fanciers need to think a little deeper to improve, rather than blame it all on the weather, Controller, Convoyer and aerial predators.
It is a shame that some of these ybs were lost early on, hopefully some will turn up later and be given a second chance. Now back to the race where George Anderson Marathorn had the first 4 places on 864, 863, 858.94 and 858.30. George had a big team away but I know by the next evening he had most of them home. J.D Armour of the Coaltown club won the next 3 places on 840, 816, and 790. 8th and 9th was Jim Mullen of the same club on 739 and 735. Sandy Proctor of S.t. Serfs sneaked one in 10th spot on 695.
Rosyth sent 237 and it was Jimmy and Dwain Bingham who the red card, with a young chq, cock from Jimmy’s old family of birds just flying to the perch. Jimmy hasn’t raced a pigeon for a few years being very busy with his work as he is a plumber to trade, but still stayed a member. Jimmy’s son Dwain took an interest this year so the name they fly under now is J & D Bingham. They only sent a small entry and are very pleased with the result as are the rest of the club. So for now we will call them the new kids on the block. Well done chaps! 2nd and pipped at the post was yours truly with a light chq hen flying to the perch as all mine are. She is a half sister to my hen which won 52nd Open SNRPC Reims this year, also half sister to my second one from Reims. 3rd was Alan Cunningham with a Grizzle hen flying to the perch. This one contains Busschaert bloodlines. 4th yours truly again with a young chq hen same way bred as 135th Open SNRPC Arras this year bred from a pair of Dale Newcombes birds, the dam being from Style and Regatta.
From the second St.Boswells race 910 birds were away at 7.45 am into a S W Wind and although we had another fairly hard race for the yb’s their was an improvement in Velocities and returns which were much better. The winner again in 1st 2nd 4th and 5th was George Anderson king of Scone. Georges were doing, 1057, 1056, 1037 and 1035. J.D Armour of Coaltown club was 3rd and 6th on 1042 and 1029. Jim Benvie was 7th and won Howe Prem on 1019. Big Pete Holt of the same club was 8th & 9th on 975 & 974, with Pete Penman Snr, Coaltown, 10th on 973.
Rosyth had 141 and it was Ricky Brown with a home bred Red Pied hen taking the top spot flying to the perch. Ricky was also 2nd with another home bred White cock on the drive. I managed to squeeze this out of Ricky after asking him how many days was it sitting on eggs and caught him out after which we had a good laugh, with him saying it wasn’t on any just on the drive. 3rd Stuart Bowman with a Young Mealy cock. His sire won a 2nd prize last year and was from a cock which won 102nd Open SNRPC Portsmouth. The Dam is from a Mealy cock which is a brother to the hen which bred John Clark of Airdrie’s, 1st West Section SNFC Falaise. 4th Stuart Bowman again with the hen which was 4th club the week before, same way bred as 135th Open SNRPC Arras.
