I haven’t had any internet for the last few weeks so unfortunately, I missed the last couple of old bird races. I know the Penzance race was a poor enough race, with the birds being held until after eleven before being released. In the end up, it turned out a pretty bad race for the North West fanciers. Then we had the fiasco of the St Malo Derby, a race which is supposed to be the Blue Riband event of the year. Some people have tried to gloss over what was another unmitigated disaster for the NIPA. The birds may have been held over for three days, but there’s no mention of the fact that the birds were actually in the crates for almost a week. Then to ship them back to Portland and expect them to fly home, it was never going to happen. Try locking them in a crate for a week and taking them even to let’s say Mullingar. What kind of a race do you think you would get? Everyone knew from the week before, that there would be no chance of a release on the Friday or Saturday. We were speculating during that week that it could be a Sunday race if we were lucky, but even then Sunday turned out to be a non starter. If France was a non starter for this year due to the weather, which we have no control over, could we have gone straight to the likes of Portland for a race? Members might not have been overly happy, but at least we would all have known in advance and had the chance to send or not. Maybe in the best interests of the birds, they should have been brought back into Ireland and released; they would have always been there for next year. Not to be unfortunately, the powers that be decided to release in Portland, which led to the loss of many hundreds of very good pigeons that had been nursed along all year only to be thrown away. It’s a shame when sometimes they can make decisions which are totally justified and correct then turn round and make decisions which are totally incredulous. I know it’s hard to get it right all the time and at times it’s not easy. Always give credit where credit is due, but on the other hand, when things go so wrong, we shouldn’t be afraid to say so.
I have very few details at all when it comes to Portland, which isn’t surprising I suppose. I know that this year’s Section winner was Jim Whiteside from the Omagh club. Jim’s game pigeon also took 38th Open, and was the same bird that won the Section from St Malo last year, a really super pigeon indeed. Alan Hall also timed in the Omagh club to take 6th Section and 188th Open. Alan’s pigeon will get its bronze award for this, having flown France twice previous to this race.
Up in the Derry clubs, we had three arrivals in race time. Billy Page from the Foyle club was the only day bird recorded. Experience again was the name of the game, as Billy’s bird was another that flew St Malo last year. Lightly raced this year he only had three inland races before Portland. Billy takes second Section and is also in the top 100 in the Open. Another super channel pigeon by anyone’s standards. Two other fanciers timed in the town the next day, John Mc Groarty from the Maiden City club, and Derek Simpson from the Londonderry club. Great flying by all three men into the town. In total, only six game pigeons made it back in Section H over the three days.
Billy Page of the Foyle with his Portland winner.
