for Dave Waterhouse as a
gesture of good will. I
have only been racing the
Jacob Poortvliet pigeons
for a few seasons, but
they are proving to be
outstanding.”
Steve’s other position
within the sport is, as I’ve
previously written, is race
advising and he is always
watching the skies on his
satellite system at
weekends. For this reason
he has named his family
of pigeons mostly with
the word ‘Sky’. To name
some of them, ‘Sky
Prince’ was 12th Open
L&SECC Nantes and won
the Booker Gold Cup, as
the first nominated
yearling in the race, ‘Sky
King’ won 1st SW Section,
5th Open L&SECC Vire,
velocity 925, in a very
hard race. At that time
convoyer Doug Went on his
return journey described the
northerly head winds over the
Channel of sledge hammer
force. ‘Sky Train’ won the Three
Borders Federation as a young
bird from Blandford. ‘Sky Girl’ a
yearling won 3rd Section E,181st Open NFC Bordeaux
443 miles, in a north east
wind. At that time Tom
Sherwood was the man to
beat in the NFC and was a
tremendous National flyer,
winning Section E on
several occasions. On two
different NFC races, one
from Nantes and the
other from Saintes he was
just in front of Steve
winning Section E. Steve’s
best racer was the
Busscheart blue chequer
hen, ‘Sky Queen’, never
out of the first 20 in all
National and Classic races
she was entered. Steve
told me, she was born
with that natural ability
to win races. She won
from the word go as a
young bird and never
looked back recording
17th Open L&SECC Vire,
velocity 885ypm, 7th Open
L&SECC Angers in a north
east wind, velocity 1049ypm.
This wonderful hen was sent as
a single entry to the Saintes
National with 5,244 birdsSteve Appleby.