Final old bird race of season for Cumbrian fanciers

Neil Buchanan (left) holding the Amal winner while John has the dark cock which was 2nd club, 3rd federation, 7th Amal. Like the winner the dark cock has been to all three Guernsey races this year and scored each time.

Cumbrian fanciers held their final old bird race of the season, a third test from Guernsey in the Channel Islands.

Because of poor weather in southern England from Poole up to Cheltenham the birds were held over until being liberated at 8.30am on Sunday morning in a light west wind.

It proved another challenging race for the Cumbrian birds, who were part of a 1,500 convoy from across the North West.

The West Cumbria Amalgamation winner, and the bird likely to top the Cumbria Combine, was flying 346 miles to the Egremont loft of John ‘Tank’ Wilson and Neil Buchanan. It was clocked just before 5pm, covering the flight home at almost 41 mph.

The winner was almost 45 minutes clear, a terrific effort, as some of the leading fanciers in west Cumbria over the distance were dominating the result sheet.

Wilson and Buchanan had four in the top 20; runner-up Alan Graham had four in the top 30; Derwent Valley Federation winners Jimmy Nelson and Fletcher Crellin had two in the first six; the Aspatria loft of Andrew Berwick and Kenneth Watson, who had won an Amalgamation and a Fed from the previous two Guernseys, had six in the top 40 and Ian and Denise Wood.

Winx who topped the Amal and has scored impressively in all three Guernsey races.

Wilson and Buchanan’s winner is a very consistent four-year-old blue hen from the best of their Frans Zwols family. Her sire is a top breeder who is a grandson of champions Eagle Boy and Game Boy.

The dam is a daughter of Amor and Sweet Princess. Amor and his sire Tip Top Junior have bred a host of winners between them for Frans.

She has now been given the name Winx, by a very good friend of Neil’s and her race record is very impressive.

Her successes include 1st club 3^rd Fed, 3^rd Amal, 18^th Combine Cheltenham, only a second behind the Amal winner. She was 5^th club, 21^st Fed Weymouth.

This year she has flown all three Guernsey races. From the first she was 1^st club, 4^th Fed, 7^th Amal, 14^th Combine. Two weeks later from Guernsey 2 she was 1^st club, 3^rd Fed, 4^th Amal, 4^th Combinde.

Now to top it all from Guernsey 3 she was 1^st club, 1^st Fed, 1^st Amal and almost certainly 1^st Combine – a truly magnificent pigeon.

Jimmy Nelson (left) with the Derwent Valley Federation winner and Fleck Crellin holds the pigeon that was fourth.

Nelson and Crellin have enjoyed a successful season in the Derwent Valley, scoring their second successive Federation win – and taking fourth Fed as well. They clocked at 6-20pm and again 10 minutes later.

Both are two-year-olds and are bred from birds purchased from the outstanding Scottish fancier Peter Virtue, a distance racing legend north of the border. The grandparents of the two hens – a chequer and a white – have both won Scottish Nationals.

Fleck said: “They weren’t paired-up this year, just raced spare but were then paired up in the roundabout section in their old boxes from last year. They had just been left to pair among the cocks in that section and they were sent to Guernsey sitting ten days on the first eggs they had laid.”

The young bird programme starts this week-end with the first race from Flookburgh.

WEST CUMBRIA AMALGAMATION (173 birds): 1, Wilson and Buchanan (Egremont Rangers) 1200; 2, A. Graham and co (Cleator Moor) 1112; 3, 6, Nelson and Crellin (Flimby HS) 1075, 1056; 4, Varty, son and grandson (Flimby HS) 1070; 5, Berwick, Watson, Harker and Thompson (Dearham) 1060.

WEST CUMBERLAND FEDERATION (69 birds): 1, 3, Wilson and Buchanan (Egremont Rangers) 1200, 1043; 2, 4, 6, A. Graham and co 1112, 1039, 1019; 5, Holliday and Dixon 1036.

DERWENT VALLEY FEDERATION (104 birds): 1, 4, Nelson and Crellin (Flimby HS) 1075, 1056; 2, J. Varty, son and grandson (Flimby HS) 1070; 3, Berwick, Watson, Harker and Thompson (Dearham) 1060; 5, 6, I. and D. Wood (Harrington Central) 1038, 1032.

WORKINGTON VICTORIA (5 sent 23): 1, 2, Varty, son and grandson 1070, 890; 3, 5, Blacklock and sons 805, 585; 4, Martindale and Lawman 591; 6, McLuckie bros 565.

CUMBERLAND SOCIAL CIRCLE (10 sent 20): 1, 3, Nelson and Crellin 1075, 1056; 2, Varty, son and grandson 1070; 4, A. Graham and co 1039; 5, I. and D. Wood 1038; 6, Berwick, Watson, Harker and Thompson 968.

FLIMBY HS (7 sent 70): 1, 4, Nelson and Crellin 1075, 1056; 2, Varty, son and grandson 1070; 3, Berwick, Watson, Harker and Thompson 1060; 5, 6, Tinnion and Aitken 1017, 976.

CLEATOR MOOR CENTRAL (5 sent 51): 1, 2, 3, Graham and co 1112, 1040, 1020; 4, 5, J. Fitzsimmons and son 1014, 934; 6, J. Moreau 889.

HARRINGTON CENTRAL (2 sent 6): 1, 2, 3, 4, I. and D. Wood 1038, 1032, 610, 526; 5, M. Walker 494.

WORKINGTON SOCIAL LIMIT (2 sent 7): 1, McLuckie bros 565.

LOWCA HS (2 sent 6): 1, Holliday and Dixon 1036.

DEARHAM UTD (4 sent 31): 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, Berwick, Watson, Harker and Thompson 1075, 981, 943, 598, 588, 572.

COPELAND NW: 1, Berwick, Watson, Harker and Thompson 1060; 2, 4, I. and D. Wood 1037, 1031; 3, Holliday and Dixon 1035; 5, Tinnion and Aitken 1016; 6, Fitzsimmons and son 1012.