Yesterday was the final of the Algarve Great Derby Winter Race was raced from Alfandegâ da Fé a distance of 486 km and a final entry of 1279 birds.

An excellent result was by UK fanciers including 5 birds in the first eight with the 1st place going to Mr William Donachie from Scotland and an incredible performance by Chris Turner and Debbie Neale with three birds in the first eight!!

I was delighted to receive the message from Debbie and must offer my most sincere congratulations.

Their 2nd place winner ‘My Love My Life’ has a quite remarkable bloodline  and an incredible gene pool.  We again are proud that she contains a  good percentage of our bloodlines through my good friend Jack Walker of Cannock.

The dam of ‘My Love My Life’ is also the dam of the  of ‘Pebbles’  a hen that was a real superstar over the entire 2019 Sun City Million Dollar Race program that thrilled all of the UK fancy with her results. She picked up over $9000 on the way.

The dam is ‘Super Gloria’ bred by Jack from a son of ‘Bronco’ x ‘Little Star’ and a daughter of ‘Caliph’ x Sunday Girl’  that we bred. This is the same way bred as the Hot Spot 4 winner in the MNFC One Loft Race 2016  from Salisbury that Jack bred for the Magnificent Seven Syndicate.

‘Super Gloria’ is also the grand dam of their 2nd bird in the clock for 7th Final. What a great breeding hen.

The sire of ‘My Love My Life’ also has me reflecting about just great pigeons. The sire has ‘Diamond Sissi’ in her pedigree and she was a hen we raced in our Dutch Loft with great success and loaned her to Jack for a few rounds when we retired her. She was bred from a son of the renowned SISSI of Ad Scahearlaeckens paired to a daughter of GOLDEN Gaby when he was coupled to BLUE SPIRIT a full sister to KLEINEN. So mainly the ever present indestructible lines of Kleinen of Gaby Vandenabeele. Golden Gaby of course had these lines in abundance and was a real star for us before his transfer to M & D Evans where he exceeded even our own hopes for him mainly because of the high quality hens they selected for him.

I have no explanation how so few bloodlines create such an impact for 40 to 50 years and many generations and continue to improve results.

Many congratulations once again to Chris and Debbie, two really hard working genuine individuals.

 

Diamond Sissi… Plenty of the Kleinen lines still winning at the highest level…