JONES & THOMAS
2nd & 4th North West Combine Niort 2011
by Darren Roberts
The North West Combine’s longest race of the season was flown from Niort last Saturday. The birds were up at 6am in a west wind turning north-west at the home end so during the afternoon I made my way up to the Wirral loft of Jones & Thomas to await their arrivals. Well, what can I say? At 5.16pm the first bird arrived and off went Robbie, running up and down like a good ‘un, through the back door and out the front one, still dancing up and down. Meanwhile a second pigeon arrived and Robbie’s partner Carl and I were trying without any joy to get it to trap, shouting to Robbie that another pigeon was here. It dropped straight away when it saw Robbie, who said, ‘Oh, he always does that’.
Robbie Thomas holding their first two home
These two birds were to end up 1st & 3rd fed, 2nd & 4th North West Combine. The first bird, a chequer cock, is a grandson of two NW Combine winners (from Messac and Niort). He has won Fougeres twice and was 2nd club Niort 2009 and 3rd club 2010; he is also a combine silver medal winner (3 times in the 1st 20 of the combine).
The second bird is the loft’s superstar Lucky Carl, probably the best pigeon to race in the history of the NW Combine. He is a blue w/f cock from a mother/son pairing, the dam being their 2000 Niort combine winner, one of only two birds on the day, when paired back to her own son, also a multiple winner land and channel. Lucky Carl is the only bird in the history of the NW Combine to be placed in the top 10 in channel events FIVE times. He has won 3 x 1st inland plus at least 5 x 1st over the water.
In the history of NW Combine racing, some 110 years, there have only been 3 gold medals won (3 times in the 1st 10 of the NW Combine over the water) and Jones & Thomas have won them all! They will have to invent a new award now for this cock for his super 5 times in the 1st 10.
Jones & Thomas have also won the NW Combine channel averages and points cup for six of the last ten years.
They sent 23 to this Niort race and when some clubs never had all their prizes won until Sunday, Robbie and Carl had 14 on the day and 5 more by 7am Sunday.
Commenting afterwards on his prolonged dance of joy on timing his first bird, Robbie said to me quizzically, as if it was the most natural thing in the world, ‘Don’t you do that Da when you get one?’ Such enthusiasm goes a long way to explaining the continued success of this outstanding partnership.
