Eric Higginbottom~ 1st Section K NFC Falaise Young Bird National 2014, an exceptional performance!

*

*The National Flying Club held their 2014 Young Bird National Race from Falaise on Tuesday 9th September after a five day holdover due to adverse weather conditions. The race was a tough affair with many losses and huge gaps between arrivals. A drop in velocity of over 150 yards per minute covered the first 20 positions in the Open from more than three and a half thousand bird. The race also had some really exceptional performances with six 1st Section winners in the first 10 open positions but none more exceptional than Eric Higginbottoms young grizzle hen winning 1st Section K and 10th Open flying 304 miles into a North East headwind. That is double the distance of the winners!! Maybe the best performance of the race?

 

Eric recently moved from Sandhurst in Berkshire where he had achieved some outstanding results in National and Classic racing for many years to Bolsover near Sheffield with the objective of developing a longer distance team. The Falaise National race was his very first competitive race at his new address and what a great start. His winner is a grizzle hen that is really bred for the job being from a half brother of his 1st National Saintes in the NFC in 2009. This cocks bloodline is son of our ‘Blue Diamond (Wittenbuik x Sissi) x Blue Spirit (Kleinen x Flika therefore a full sister to Wittenbuik) when he was paired to a daughter of ‘Majestic” (Son Ikon winner of 1st Dutch National Ace Middle Distance 1996). The mother of his 1st Section K is a daughter of ‘Waalre’ x ‘Diego Hen’. ‘Waalre’ is breeding some real top class birds in all types of competition. He was bred from ‘De Jeu’ 1st Dutch National Montauban over 600 miles as a yearling against 34,827 birds when paired to ‘Simply the Best’ raced by Rik Ros to win 1st National St.Vincent 675 miles against 27,516 birds.

The ‘Diego Hen’ was bred by the German Ace Fancier Hubert Speen winning herself 2nd National 1326 birds, 95th International 7,738 birds from Bordeaux 920 km as a yearling and 213th National Barcelona 1050 km as a two year old against 2368 birds. Her father ‘Schimmel’ was a legendry pigeon in Germany winning the ‘Primus Inter Pares’ International Barcelona award in 2003 with these results from Barcelona in 5 back to back years *34th Nat. Barcelona 3511 birds *37th Nat. Barcelona 2408 birds *115th Nat. Barcelona 2966 birds *167th Nat. Barcelona 3376 birds *353rd Nat. Barcelona 3028 birds. He also won *262nd Nat. Perpignan 1120 birds *199th Nat. Marseille 6466 birds *490th Nat. Marseille 5348 birds and became a sensational breeder. His bloodline is inbred to Thomas Peeters and Sons world famous ‘Diego Armando Barcelona’.