Paul
Rennison is a great worker for the sport of pigeon racing and the 2003 season
saw him rewarded, when he won 1st. section A, in the N.F.C. Nantes
National race. I must say, it’s always great to see a worker win and no one
deserves a bit of success, more than Paul! He runs an eight bedroom hotel on the
south coast, at Worthing, with his wife, Janet, and says she is a great help the
pigeons, doing most of the training.
Paul
has had pigeons most of his life and started racing in 1973, when he got
married, and purchased a suitable property, to erect a loft. His first stock
were obtained from the Frank Hall London Auctions and good local Horsham
fanciers, including Charlie Woods, John Cookson and Jeff Cockerall. Paul
obtained the A. R. Hill pigeons from E. Ward, through the London Auctions, which
are the birds he races today, with additions over the years, from his good
friend, Keith Wilkins of Lewis. Paul has always liked the longer races, six
hours plus, and tells me his family of pigeons have always held their own, in
these type of races. His biggest thrill was clocking in on the day from Pau (550
miles) and says, winning the London & South East Classic Club breeder /
buyer in the 2002 season was very nice. Pau remembers that when he started up in
the sport, the late Charlie Woods had some outstanding pigeons and put up some
amazing performances with his Champion ‘Pride of Suussex’. In the early
1970’s, Jim Sweetescot, introduced Paul to Jed Jackson of Worthing and at that
time, Jed, had access to his own telephone switch board, and spent many hours on
line, talking pigeons with Paul. When Jed won the Pau Grand National, the
Rennison family shaired his table at the prize presentation and Paul says, it
was an unforgettable evening.
The
Rennison loft has always been raced on the Natural system and Paul says his A.
R. Hill / Kirkpatrick pigeons have won many major prizes in National and Classic
races through the years, including 25th. open N.F.C. Pau, clocking on
the day of liberation. Paul pairs his race team up in late May and flies a bit
of roundabout early in the season, to get the bird fit. He feeds Bean all the
year round and works the birds very hard in the early part of the season. The
birds are not broke down at any time, but are fed light, with pellets and a
small grain mixture, when they return from a race. The Rennison’s present
33ft. loft, was erected in 1986 and has a front corridor running the full length
of the structure and 30 natural nest boxes. He likes deep litter on the loft
floors and told me that his loft is very well ventilated, with a Pan tiled roof
and open vent bonnets. The loft has two young bird sections, which houses about
65 babies each year and these are also fed on Beans, and raced on the natural
system, to the perch. The youngsters are never put on the ‘darkness’ system.
As
I’ve already stated, Paul Rennison, is one of the sports workers and is always
ready to help out, in any way he can. He has been Chairman of the Sussex South
Road Federation for 17 years and is also the Chairman of the Brighton &
Worthing 5 bird club, which has a very strong membership of 63 fanciers. Paul
tells new starter in the sport, to obtain some latebreds from a good local
fancier, to form the basis of their family and let the basket sort out the
quality birds. He believes in inbreeding and line breeding to produce pigeons
for stock and likes crosses for the race team. Well done to Paul and Janet, on
their wonderful performance in the Nantes National!
Roger
(Dappy) Owers of Portland.
Our
second featured loft in this week’s ‘NATIONAL FORUM’, is Roger Owers and
he is another 2003 N.F.C. section winner, recording 1st. section C. 6th.
open N.F.C. Dax International. Roger told me, that he has been a supporter
of the N.F.C. Dax International race, since day one and to do so well, has given
him a brilliant feeling, as he has planned his whole season around this event.
Roger’s Dax section winner, was his good two year old blue cock, ‘45713’
and the International was his fifth channel race of the season, previously
recording 392nd. open C.S.C.F.C. Saintes. His sire, the blue cock
‘16113’, was bred by the late Eric Cannon of Wormley and is bred down from
Eric’s ten times Pau cock, ‘Culmer Lad’, who scored in ten N.F.C. races.
‘Culmer Lad’ was a brilliant breeder and was a son of Eric’s first N.F.C.
Pau merit award winner, ‘Culmer Lady’. The dam of ‘54713’ was a blue
chequer hen of Roger’s own breeding and has proved a brilliant cross with the
Eric Cannon family.
Roger’s
present house in Portland, Dorset, is his third address in three years, as he is
a builder and renovates houses, which he says, is not ideal for the sport of
pigeon racing. However, he now has two year olds and his broken old stock, are
performing well. He was born in Dorchester and comes from a very large family.
He first became interested in pigeons as a lad, when he worked on a farm at
weekends for pocket money and would watch the strays in the barn. Roger had his
first birds when he lived at Victoria Park and kept them in a 6ft. x 4ft. garden
shed, with home made bob traps. His first stock birds were a pair of Barkers,
gifted from an old local fancier, Charlie Budd, but at this time only kept them
as a hobby, as he was very keen on Snooker and Pool. At the age of 18, he
married his wife, Gillian, and set up home in Bradford Peverell, next door to a
very good pigeon fancier named, Colin Foster. Roger restarted his pigeons and
joined the Dorchester & Dist. P.C. His first pigeons were Dordin crosses,
which were successful up to the middle distance and within a few years had some
good consistent results in the club and federation, but found the longer races
very hard. After about two years, he purchased a new 24ft. x 6ft. Kidby loft and
flew the natural system, which is the same to this day, with the occasional
variations of teasing methods. Looking back at his early mistakes, Roger says,
the main things I regret is having birds from so many different fanciers, all
meaning well and me to keen to try any. His reason for saying this is, that when
you do stumble on a pigeon showing above average results, you tend to find
it’s a sport pigeon and the chances of it reproducing is very small, but takes
you down that long road of two or three seasons to find this out. Roger is a
firm believer, as in horse racing, there are horses for courses and good blood
lines stand the test of time.
In
regard to loft design, Roger maintains, so many people fly from garden sheds to
very high standard built lofts, but personally he feels it’s nice to work in a
clean environment in the loft. He keeps both his lofts on deep litter and scraps
all the perches twice a day. Roger races 12 pairs on the natural system and
breeds about 24 youngsters to race every season. The young birds are kept
totally natural and are trained very hard, then raced up to and overseas. He is
not a fan of the ‘darkness’ system, but says, this could be ignorance on his
part and a lot of good fanciers will soon tell him, they do well on the system.
He keeps only three pairs of stock birds and over the last 12 years has only
introduced two new families in to his loft. One being Mr. & Mrs. Eric
Cannon, for what reason, he says, he need not explain, as Eric’s wonderful
record in the N.F.C. over many years speaks for it’s self, and the other being
Bob McDonald of Fraserborough in Scotland. Roger told me the new introductions
have been well tried, with the two cock birds, both crossed with his own hen
line, down from Tony Hustler’s Palamos pigeon, ‘06029’.
Roger
says his wife, Gillian, is a ‘model wife, and has no interest in the pigeons,
but has never given him any grief over them, and helps if needed. Roger has been
the chairman of the Dorchester club for many years and says he really enjoys the
office. He told me that, he enjoys
any pigeon race, but because of his complete change around from middle to long
distance about ten years ago, he finds because his main goals are later in the
season, his birds are not ready until the middle part of the season. He
doesn’t subscribe to the view that one family will win from 50 miles, through
to 500miles. Roger says, I always competed in and considered an important test
for my old and young birds, was the Dorchester single bird Guernsey Open and to
this day, I don’t think I have hardly ever missed one of these races in the
last 25 years, having won the event in 1981 and recorded best bird in Dorset or
clock station many times. The Owers’ loft has recorded many premier positions
through the years including: Nantes Centenary race 1st.,2nd.,3rd.
and 4th. club (won by 3hours), 1st. Federation, 1st.
open Combine, 10th. S.W. section, 31st. open (65,000
birds), the second birds on the clock from the Nantes Centenary race, recording
372nd. open, was Roger’s good hen, ‘10132’ and she went on to
win, 4th. open N.F.C. Pau, on the day and her daughter was clocked
next morning to win 108th. open. Other positions won by ‘10132’,
were 35th. open Bergerac, 182nd. open C.S.C.F.C. Nantes, 2nd.
club, 12th. federation Bordeaux as a yearling, 117th. open
C.S.C.F.C. Pau and bred many premier racers including, 1st. Weydor
Guernsey and 1st. club Saintes. Another outstanding racer for this
Dorset loft was ‘02744’, who recorded 1st. club, 1st
open Dorset Federation (889 birds), 142nd. open Rennes, 3rd.
club Saintes and 2nd. club Nantes. A brilliant family of Channel
racers! Congratulations to Roger and Gillian, on their wonderful performance
from the Dax International.
Well
that’s it for this week’s ‘NATIONAL FORUM’. I hope you have enjoyed our
little insight into the thoughts of two of our 2003 N.F.C. section winning
fanciers. Any one with good N.F.C. news, please contact me on Tele: 01372 463480
or Email: keithmott@btopenworld.com
