Wednesday 1st August – Ashbourne: 70 miles, 613 yards

Jeremy was on site at the crack of dawn, waiting for the cloud cover to disperse and the sun to break through, and liberated 1,017 birds at 07.40am into a moderate SSW headwind. This year’s crop of youngsters cleared superbly with approximately 850 clearing straight for home and 150 doing a couple of laps before also getting online and starting the journey home, as they had to work for every yard against an increasing headwind.

At the home end the first arrivals hit the landing boards at 9.27am recording a velocity of 1154 ypm. An outstanding 700 plus birds were back by 10.00am, and an even better 942 birds by the time the race closed.

The top 10 result is below – click the image to see the full race result.

First – Hujja: Pigeon GB18N07004; winner of £1000 prize money, recording a velocity of 1154 ypm. Here’s what Hughie Eades of team Hujja had to say about the breeding of his winning pigeon: “Sire Dark Cheq GB14N09052 Van Den Bose, Dam Black GB16N16439 Roland Jansen. 04 was bred in the race loft from two of my best race birds, these two have won many prizes in The Glastonbury Flying Club and top positions in the W.O.E.S.R.C. As a syndicate we have entered every year and had some success winning 2nd and 5th in the final race in 2006 and 9th in the final with the Slim Shady syndicate. The HUJJA consists my son James, my wife Jacque and me, Hughie Eades. This year our syndicate HUJJA entered three birds and two for Slim Shady, all of which are home from Hot Spot 1. We would like to thank Jeremy for the way he looks after the birds so well.”

Second place went to Black Mountain Boy GB 18A19921 recording a velocity of 1151.8 ypm. Black Mountain Boy is a school pigeon flying for Black Mountain Primary School based in Belfast, Northern Ireland, and won the boys and girls £250 in prize money plus £100 for the first school pigeon to be clocked. The breeder of the pigeon is Ken Wilkinson who informed us the school also won the final race last year out of all the school contenders. Black Mountain Boy is of Gabby Vandenabeele origin. His sire is direct from the loft of Leo van Rijn and is sire g/sire of winners. The dam was bred by very successful fancier Glen Mcneilly. Ken told us he bought back last year’s entrant after the final race in the online auction, and wanted to say what a fine job Jeremy the loft manager had done as the bird had matured fantastically and was a sure sign of just how well cared for these birds are when entered into the one loft.

Third place went to Aston Flyers recording a velocity of 1151.4 ypm and winning £200 prize money. Aston Flyers member David Morton explained “the syndicate are friends of mine. Our breeder is Robin Andrews who works for me on my fruit farm. We have a lot of fun with the syndicate and this is our best result yet!” Robin explained that this pigeon is of his old Janssen X Van Den Bosch family that have served him very well over the years. The G/sire on the father’s side was a multiple fed winner and the g/sire on the mother’s side won Messac no fewer than five times and originates from Cliff Davis blood.