RACING PIGEON NEWSLETTER ISSUE 263

In This Issue:

Local man raises

Ced and Clive Allwright
The race is on

- Local man raises, races pigeons.

By Rich Myhre - Heraldnet

For pigeon racing enthusiasts like Marysville's Roald Haugen, nothing's better than watching one of your birds fly home and win a race at the same time.

MARYSVILLE -- Roald Haugen got hooked on pigeon racing as a boy growing up in his north Everett neighborhood.

Today, more than a half-century later, Haugen lives in Marysville and is long retired from his career as an installer of commercial fire-protection systems. But over the years he never outgrew his love for racing pigeons.

"I've just always been fascinated by it," said the 69-year-old Haugen. "These are amazing animals. They'll come home from anywhere. They'll fly through anything. And they'll die trying to get home."

Years ago, when his kids were in high school, Haugen began feeling guilty about the time he was spending with his birds. He ended up selling his flock.

"And I was miserable," he admitted. "My wife finally said, 'Shoot, get the birds back. I liked you better then.'"

And these days he's as passionate as ever. "I haven't been able to shake it," he said with a smile. "I just enjoy seeing (the pigeons) come home."

Pigeon racing might not be as popular as football or basketball, but there are enthusiasts all around the United States and elsewhere in the world, particularly Europe, South Africa and Australia. There are several clubs in and around Snohomish County, where members share their love for raising and racing homing pigeons.

"If you like sports, this has all the thrills," said Herb Cartmell, who is president of Woodinville's Sno-King Racing Pigeon Club and is also a board member of the American Racing Pigeon Union. "It's the best game in town, it really is."

Like thoroughbred race horses, pigeons -- the specific breed is Racing Homer -- can be bred and trained, and top animals are sold for their breeding potential, sometimes for many thousands of dollars.

Haugen, who has about 40 birds, is more of a hobbyist than an entrepreneur. He occasionally buys pigeons, but more often he raises his own. Trying to find the right breeding mix is part of the sport's appeal, he said.

"I know each one of them, and each year I'll switch the breeding around," he said. "You're trying to improve the blood all the time. If you get one excellent flyer out of six babies a year, that's good. And if you get a (good male and female) pair, you want to keep that pair together."

The most gratifying thing "is seeing your breeding come to fruition," he added.

In a typical year, Haugen estimates he spends only a few hundred dollars on his hobby, and much of that is the fuel cost for the truck to transport the pigeons to races.

"We call it the poor man's horse racing," he said with a chuckle.

Haugen is a member of the Everett Racing Pigeon Club, which has around a dozen members from Snohomish and Island counties. One of the club members is the elder statesmen of pigeon racing in western Washington, 89-year-old Elwin Anderson of Everett, who has been competing and winning longer than many of his rivals have been alive.

"He is still tearing up these guys out here with his pigeons," Cartmell said.

Races are held through the spring and summer, with an old bird season for pigeons upwards of one year, followed by a young bird season for the youngsters. The day before a race, a truck travels from home to home to pick up caged pigeons and take them to the starting point, which is usually somewhere in southwest Washington or Oregon.

The next day there is a countdown to zero, at which point the cages fly open simultaneously and the birds depart en masse. They start out in a large flock, but eventually start to separate, each one flying to its home destination.

Hours later, they begin arriving. Each bird has a distinguishing leg band and they are timed to the second with special equipment. Because of the varying distances to different homes -- and those distances are measured by GPS to one-thousandth of a mile -- winners are determined not by elapsed time, but by speed.

And not every pigeon arrives on schedule. On occasion, birds get injured and even lost.

"Some days the bell just doesn't ring for them," Haugen said. "They just don't figure it out, for whatever reason. But they'll come home days, weeks and even months later."

A pigeon racer, Cartmell said, "gets to be the team's general manager, doctor, trainer and coach. You have to train these birds, like you would any athlete. And you have to keep them healthy, so you have to make sure they get enough diet, rest and exercise. So you put a lot of work into these birds.

"And you expect them all to come home, but sometimes things happen," he said. "There are obstacles and there are risks, but it's a great thrill to watch a bird come home from 200 miles away."Four of Roald Haugen’s racing pigeons fly above his Marysville home.Roald Haugen watches a group of six male homing pigeons fly out of their coop where they live at Haugen’s home in Marysville.Roald Haugen holds a 3-day-old homing pigeon.Roald Haugen shows the band around the leg of a homing pigeon that has kept track of the pigeon since just days after it was born.

- Ced and Clive Allwright
By Keith Mott

The National Flying Club ended the 2003 season with a brilliant Young Bird National from Falaise in northern France, when members entered 6,175 birds and enjoyed excellent returns. The day of the National started off dodgy with rain in northern France, but the sun soon broke through and the NFC chief convoyer, Colin Bates, cut the strings at 0835hrs and liberated into a light south-west wind. The wind was north-west in the Channel, turning to west in mainland England and favoured members on the east side of the country, especially Section E, as the final result confirmed to be correct. This National proved to be a great delight for me personally, as my good friends, Ced and Clive Allwright of Ashford, won the young bird race and recorded their second NFC win. The father and son partnership sent 15 youngsters to the National, recording their first bird, a 'darkness' blue chequer cock, now named ‘Falaise Supreme’, at 11.28, flying 164 miles. They topped up a brilliant day by recording the best five young birds and best old hen, by 30 minutes, in their local clock station. Ced and Clive's old bird looked like finishing up 7th Open in the Old Hens National result, this hen being clocked approx. 18 minutes after the Young Bird National winner.

The partners won the Young Bird National for the first time from Pontorson (6,469 birds) in 1998 with their champion Haelterman blue pied hen, Champion 'Starlett', and both the parents where bred by Frank and Anne Tasker, from their fantastic 'Filmstar' bloodlines. Frank's 'Filmstar' was a champion racer and breeding cock, winning many premier prizes, including 26 times 1st, 12 times 1st Open Federation and is responsible for breeding countless winners. The latest National winner, Champion ‘Falaise Supreme’, is a Haelterman/Allwright distance family cross with the dam of 'Starlett' being the grand dam of the Falaise National winner. The Allwright's latest champion had three short club races, from Littlehampton and Fareham, on his build up to the Falaise National and was sent playing around with a young hen. Ced and Clive use the Frank Tasker 'darkness' system and their small 6ft x 4ft 'darkness' loft is a converted garden shed. The partners breed 70 young birds every season and half are put on the 'darkness' system and half are left natural. Ced says he would not put his whole team of young birds on the 'darkness' because he is not happy with their performances as yearlings. The youngsters are trained. very hard from the west and north, and race through to 230 miles in their first season. They are fed on Junior Plus and are allowed to pair up if they want to. The 'darkness' young birds are put on the system when they are weaned. The natural youngsters are housed in a 12ft loft and all the lofts are painted out in light blue, which is very restful for the inmates. Ced and Clive keep ten pairs of stock birds and these are paired up in January because, they like a few early youngsters. The main families kept are the Frank and Anne Tasker 'Filmstar' family; Jim Biss, Eric and Pat Cannon and their own long distance family, which they have blended over the years. The stock loft has a nice big wire flight that the inmates can get out into the weather. When bringing in new stock they go for good winning lines, and say the only type they like is 'the winning type'.

The day after the Falaise National my good friend, Tony Dann and I made the 65 mile drive down to Ashford, to see Ced and Clive's latest champion and offer our congratulations in person. I must say, the Allwrights are some of the nicest people I've had the pleasure to meet in my 35 years in the sport of pigeon racing and their latest National win has given my wife Batty and I much delight. I must take this opportunity to thank my ol’ mucker, Tony Dann, for his help with the photography on this article. Ced showed us many of his top performers including his good, dark chequer cock which has secured the British Barcelona Club 'Spanish Diploma' in the 2003 season, when he completed his three times in the open result from Palamos (647 miles). This game cock is off their own long-distance family and on his build up to Palamos each year, is only raced lightly, with two inland and one Channel race before the main event and in the 2002 season the was the only bird timed in the Kent 500 Mile Specialist Club. His dam is one of the loft's best Channel racers, winning many firsts on the long distance, and on handling this wonderful dark cock, Tony and I both agreed he was the perfect pigeon in the hand, being medium sized and long cast, with silky feathering. Ced and Clive enjoy racing every week, but their main interest is in the long distance events with the N.F.C., B.B.C., B.I.C.C. and L.& S.E.C.C. The Allwright loft has won many 1st Federations through the years and the 2002 season saw them win 13 firsts in the local club. Their good Eric Cannon blue white flight hen recorded 1st S. E. Section, 12th Open London & South East Classic Club Pau in 2002 and was the only bird clocked in Kent. This game hen was bred from a direct son of Champion 'Culmer Marion', Eric Cannon's N.F.C. Sartilly Young Bird National winner. We also handled their latest National winner, Champion ‘Falaise Supreme’, and on inspecting him, I noticed that he had just cast his third flight and was beginning to drop his body feathers. He was medium sized and apple bodied in the hand and I thought, although he was a cross, he was very much like the Haelterman type.


Ced has been in the sport for 60 years, starting during the war years with the help of a friend who was a local National Pigeon Service rep. His father was an outstanding fancier in London and specialised in long-distance racing, winning many premier positions in the London N.R. Combine. In turn his father was a great fancier, making Clive the fourth generation of pigeon fanciers in the Allwright family and Ced has racing diplomas dating back to 1912. For many years Ced flew on the north road in partnership with his late wife, Vera, and says that she was a great worker with the pigeons. She clocked in many winners from the long distance, when Ced was at work. Clive became interested in his father's pigeons at the age of four and has been a partner for over 30 years. Ced says, Clive is a great worker in the partnership and selects, and purchases the new stock for breeding. They race their 25 pairs on the natural system, with Channel racing in mind, but like to compete in the shorter races. They have raced the odd pigeon on the widowhood system, but say they enjoy seeing their birds in the garden. They stagger their pairing up, starting in the first section in January and work through the loft, finishing the job in mid-March. The main racing loft is 30ft long, five sections, and all trapping is in to sputniks. The whole loft set up is in a big wire compound to keep out cats: The old birds are hopper fed on winter mixture and in one of their best seasons they were fed maple peas only. They say all corn must be of premier quality. Old bird training is from the west and north, wherever Clive is working, and he likes to take them 30 or 40 miles if he can. Ced has been an all round bird man for most of his life and for many years had a big bird room at the top of his garden where he bred prize Canaries and foreign Finches. On my many visits to the Allwright’s Kent home, I took great delight in looking around Ced’s bird room, when they were breeding. The partners enjoy showing their Racing Pigeons and at one time they kept one or two Show Racers, and have been very successful, winning most of the local club shows and points trophies. Ced Allwright is a great stock man and is always being asked to judge at the premier local shows.

The Allwrights are a wonderful family and deserve all the great success they have enjoyed with their pigeons. That’s it for this week! My Telephone number is: 01372 463480. See yer!

-The race is on
By Emily Sweeney - Boston.com

Pigeons overhead may be flying in from Buffalo

It was a warm Thursday afternoon, and the members of the Braintree Racing Pigeon Club were readying their pigeons for a 400-mile race. The feathered competitors cooed in their cages. Each bird wore two plastic leg bands -- one with an identification number, much like a marathon runner's bib, and the second with a microchip that would serve as a miniature stopwatch.

The winged athletes were loaded into a truck bound for upstate New York, where they would be released. From that point on, they would depend on navigational instincts to fly back home to Massachusetts. The first to return would win.

Their estimated flying time from Buffalo: About seven hours.

Races like this happen almost every weekend during the warm months. At any given time, the pigeons you see flying across the South Shore may not be your average park pigeon, but a prized racer from a club in Braintree, Norwood, Plymouth, or Quincy, heading very purposefully for their respective finish lines.

"The sport," says Peter Hultman of Weymouth, "is incredibly competitive," and a bird can be worth thousands of dollars. The owners feed their birds the best grain and seed, and monitor their health carefully, as they develop their own motivational techniques.

They are not just racers, Hultman says. "They're our pets."

For centuries, people have marveled at a pigeon's ability to find its way home. Researchers at Cornell University believe that pigeons use the sun as a compass to navigate the skies, and that they can detect the earth's magnetic fields.

The races are organized by the Greater Boston Concourse, a league of 10 local clubs that breed "thoroughbreds of the sky." The Concourse has been around since 1928, but the sport itself has evolved over centuries.

Many of the enthusiasts were introduced to this backyard hobby by their fathers, or grew up in a neighborhood where a neighbor had a pigeon loft, and most have been racing for decades. Chuck Houghton of Hingham, who owns several pigeons, including a white one nicknamed Moneybags, is typical. He joined the club in 1974.

Today's racing pigeons face challenges that their forebears did not. Town ordinances often view pigeons as rats rather than thoroughbreds -- a view that the American Racing Pigeon Union, a national organization based in Oklahoma, is doing its best to counter. The Braintree Racing Pigeon Club ran in to trouble in 1999, when it was headquartered at the Weymouth Sportsmen's Club. Tensions between the gun-shooting members of the sportsmen's club and the pigeon - racing members led to an order from the town's public health agent that pigeons should not be brought indoors. Thus, the pigeon-racing faction was evicted. The Braintree Racing Pigeon Club's new home -- a trailer parked at the Fore River Shipyard in Quincy -- is not exactly fancy digs. But the pigeons don't seem to mind.

It was a warm Thursday afternoon, and the members of the Braintree Racing Pigeon Club were readying their pigeons for a 400-mile race. The feathered competitors cooed in their cages. Each bird wore two plastic leg bands -- one with an identification number, much like a marathon runner's bib, and the second with a microchip that would serve as a miniature stopwatch.

The winged athletes were loaded into a truck bound for upstate New York, where they would be released. From that point on, they would depend on navigational instincts to fly back home to Massachusetts. The first to return would win.

Their estimated flying time from Buffalo: About seven hours.

Races like this happen almost every weekend during the warm months. At any given time, the pigeons you see flying across the South Shore may not be your average park pigeon, but a prized racer from a club in Braintree, Norwood, Plymouth, or Quincy, heading very purposefully for their respective finish lines.

"The sport," says Peter Hultman of Weymouth, "is incredibly competitive," and a bird can be worth thousands of dollars. The owners feed their birds the best grain and seed, and monitor their health carefully, as they develop their own motivational techniques.

They are not just racers, Hultman says. "They're our pets."

For centuries, people have marveled at a pigeon's ability to find its way home. Researchers at Cornell University believe that pigeons use the sun as a compass to navigate the skies, and that they can detect the earth's magnetic fields.

The races are organized by the Greater Boston Concourse, a league of 10 local clubs that breed "thoroughbreds of the sky." The Concourse has been around since 1928, but the sport itself has evolved over centuries.

Many of the enthusiasts were introduced to this backyard hobby by their fathers, or grew up in a neighborhood where a neighbor had a pigeon loft, and most have been racing for decades. Chuck Houghton of Hingham, who owns several pigeons, including a white one nicknamed Moneybags, is typical. He joined the club in 1974.

Today's racing pigeons face challenges that their forebears did not. Town ordinances often view pigeons as rats rather than thoroughbreds -- a view that the American Racing Pigeon Union, a national organization based in Oklahoma, is doing its best to counter.

The Braintree Racing Pigeon Club ran in to trouble in 1999, when it was headquartered at the Weymouth Sportsmen's Club. Tensions between the gun-shooting members of the sportsmen's club and the pigeon - racing members led to an order from the town's public health agent that pigeons should not be brought indoors. Thus, the pigeon-racing faction was evicted.

The Braintree Racing Pigeon Club's new home -- a trailer parked at the Fore River Shipyard in Quincy -- is not exactly fancy digs. But the pigeons don't seem to mind.

The members meet at the clubhouse before every race. The walls are speckled with photos of club members and their birds, trophies, and plaques. Club member Al Cappellini hung up a certificate his father received in 1943 from the commander of the Army Pigeon Service, thanking him for donating homing pigeons to the military during World War II. On the opposite wall, a panoramic black-and-white photograph shows hundreds of Boston Concourse members posing for a group photo. It is dated Dec. 20, 1931.

This is where the club members gather on "shipping night," and wait for Arthur MacKinnon to arrive. MacKinnon, a retired truck driver from Carver with tattooed forearms, serves as the official chauffeur for birds competing in the Greater Boston Concourse. He drives the league's truck that pulls a long trailer especially designed for birds: There are troughs for grain and water, and ceiling fans to provide ventilation. It can hold up to 4,000 pigeons.

Each built-in pigeon basket is labeled with a club's name: "NWP" in orange paint indicates the Norwood Homing Pigeon Club; red stickers spell out "PLY" for the Plymouth Racing Pigeon Club.

On a typical shipping night, MacKinnon stops first in Plymouth, then Quincy, and then Braintree to pick up the South Shore Flyers' birds. Then he will drive between 100 to 600 miles west. The shortest race starts in Berkshire County, and the longest in Sandusky, Ohio.

For the 400-mile race starting in Buffalo, MacKinnon released the birds -- all 756 of them -- on a Saturday morning at 6:15. The skies were partly cloudy and the temperature a comfortable 52 degrees as the South Shore pigeons started on their 400-mile flight.

Back home, club members watched the skies.

The Plymouth Racing Pigeon Club proved to have the fastest birds in this race (varying distances to the birds' home lofts were factored in to the rankings). Four pigeons belonging to Aldo and Jeff Morini of Kingston took first, second, third, and fourth place. The birds from the Braintree Racing Pigeon Club performed well, with two of them finishing in the top 10. The fastest bird from the Braintree club, owned by Kevin Williams, ranked seventh place overall.

Typically pigeons will race nonstop on trips less than 300 miles and make one stop for a drink on longer races.

"It's the end of the race for the birds when they return to loft," Hultman said. "It's the end for the guys when they find out the results, and we figure out who won."

To do that, members meet at the trailer and upload their results to the clubhouse computer using WinSpeed racing pigeon software. Results are posted on the Greater Boston Concourse website, boston-concourse.com. Racers compete for trophies, bragging rights, and occasionally cash prizes of up to $2,000.

Hultman, who raises his pigeons in a backyard loft, says it's more than a casual pastime. The racing season may start in April and end in October, he says, but success in the sport requires "365 days a year of preparation."

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