NRCC – PJ Lofts Thurso Race Report I’m not quite sure where to begin this report, so let’s start by going back a few months! At the start of the 2026 racing season, the NRCC were unfortunately without a Press Officer. To ensure the race reports were published in the BHW, Ray Knight and I agreed to share the task: Ray would cover Arbroath and Lerwick, while I would report on Dunbar, Fraserburgh and Thurso. Ray has previously covered the race reports whereas I had never written a race report, even so, I decided to give it a go, particularly because it is always rewarding to see who wins each race’s Open and Section honours. I never imagined I would be writing about Chris Leak and myself taking 1 st 2 nd and 3rd Open PJ Lofts NRCC Thurso though! More on that a bit later on.
Firstly, where is Thurso? Thurso is the northernmost town on mainland Great Britain, a key gateway to the Orkney Islands and further north than Norway’s southernmost point! Our shortest-distance members fly just shy of 400 miles, while those further south in Sections I and H cover more than 500 miles. 146 members entered 1,356 birds into this iconic race, second only to the NRCC’s most prestigious race, The King George V Cup Lerwick Race.
Talking about Lerwick, as previously reported the Thurso race was pushed back a week from our original race schedule due to the postponement of the Lerwick race by one week and the transporter potentially not being back and turned around on time for Thurso marking. Some members still prefer the Lerwick race to be held on the longest day of the year, whilst others prefer it to be the grand finale race, something to consider for next year’s race programme.
After the final NRCC collection at Calverton Marking Station, Nottingham on Thursday afternoon, our convoyer David Pettitt, and driver Alan, set off for Thurso with all 1,356 birds on board. They made steady progress north, stopping overnight enroute where the birds could rest, feed and drink. On arriving in Thurso the next day, the birds were allowed to settle and rest before being fed again. As always, water remains available to the birds whenever the transporter is stationary. The weather wasn’t great on David and Chris’ arrival into Thurso on the Friday, and indeed the weather did not improve for the Saturday either, with plenty of rain and strong winds incoming. David Pettitt and Weather Advisor, Ray Luffman had no choice but to call a hold over as no improvement was likely for the rest of the day. Sunday came along and still no break in the weather, another holdover was called.
Monday morning arrived and as always, David and Ray Luffman were in constant contact discussing the weather on site and along the line of flight, all the way through to the home end. There was a break in the weather, and they both agreed the birds could go, so at 06:00 on Monday 27th July the birds were liberated into a light west wind, the 2026 PJ Loft Thurso race was on!
Section A – K D Spiers 400m/135y
Firstly, Kevin would like to congratulate the 1st Open winners and respective Section winners and to thank the NRCC Committee, marking teams and Convoyer for making this race possible. Kev explained that Thurso is his favourite race point and felt really motivated for the race, especially with no old bird racing 3 weeks previous to this. Every morning at 05:30, for three weeks, Kev was up trying to beat the excessive heat exercising his hens, before going off to work at 07:00. The hens were exercising well and were going out of sight for at least 45 minutes. Kev’s aim was to do well in his favourite race, so he sent a good team of 8 hens that have had at least fourteen 1 st prizes between them, including 1st Fed and three previous 1st Section NRCC winners. First through the traps was a two year old mealy hen, a previous winner of the NNRA futurity prize money winner as a youngster and a Fraserburgh winner as a yearling. She was purchased from Kev’s good friends UK Team, bred by Iron Pirvu from his own family of blended pigeons. Kev raced this hen on his rotation system, but she decided to pair to another hen near the end of the season, something Kev was not too happy about! Never to miss an opportunity though, Kev tried to take advantage of the situation and added one egg a day to their clutch up to the race, a trick his old partner, Graham Rick had taught him as a kid. Kev was expecting a slightly faster race, so was absolutely over the moon when he found out that he was Provisional 1st Section! Kev wanted to once again thank everyone for their good wishes and congratulations.
Section B – Matt Mason 402m/1585y
Matt’s 2 year old hen was sent sitting eggs, which literally had been laid just before basketing. This hen has been a very good hen at Matt’s lofts, always turning up on the harder races. She is bred off a cock from Matt’s good friend Billy Foulstone, Sheffield, who also bred Matt’s 2023 NRCC Dunbar winner. Her sire is from the strain of Sjaak Buwalda Melinda lines, and the dam is a hen Matt bought from the Doug Gatland lines. This little hen had previously returned from Lerwick just 2 weeks before sending her to Thurso, she had also had the Driffield comeback race days before the Thurso race. When she returns from the races, she always does a full flight around the loft before she lands so Matt has now called her Euro Fighter after the RAF jets that flyover his loft on their final approach before landing at RAF Coningsby. Euro Fighter was fed a good mixture of protein, fats and carbohydrates before entering the Thurso race. Matt is really pleased with all his birds performances recently as he and the birds didn’t get off to a very good start…Matt paired up very late this year and has seemed to be playing catch up, but the birds hit form late on and have truly delivered the goods for him. When Euro Fighter turned up, Matt was really pleased with her performance especially as he is one of the furthest west lofts on the day in an increasingly strong west wind.
Section C – Martin Sharpe 398m/876y
When Martin was waiting for his birds, he just knew which bird would be arriving first! It was his yearling Leo van Rijn cock that came first for him at Arbroath, and which won the Section from Fraserburgh. If you remember from my previous Fraserburgh report, this yearling cock did not start out his life at Martin’s loft, but in fact as a youngster at Micky Broome’s loft. Martin got the youngster in with his and his good friend Shane Hannah, took the bird back to Micky. After letting his birds out again, Mickey’s cock bird found it’s way back to Martin’s loft…at which point Micky transferred the pigeon over to Martin. Martin sent 6 birds to the race and was thrilled to get 5 back on the same day with the sixth bird arriving the day after.
Section E – GV & W Britton 431m/1271y
Graham and Michael are delighted to have won back to back Section E races with their latest Thurso Section win, it was particularly pleasing after finishing runner up in the Section at last year’s Thurso race (just some 6 yards adrift!). They originally thought they could only send 2 possibly 3 birds to Thurso, but in the end they managed to muster 7 birds to send, with a couple of hens laying just in time. Graham and Michael’s winning pigeon, a 4 year old cock bird, has been their most consistent cock bird all year, not being out of the first 10 home from any race. The cock is out of a top sprint/middle distance cock and is a big ‘bruiser’ of a pigeon, the biggest in their loft. You can see him in the photo jealously guarding his hen, who unfortunately came home hawked earlier in the season. Graham and Michael were both thrilled to see their yearling hen follow home to take 2nd Section too. They would like to congratulate Chris Leak and myself for winning Thurso and would like to thank the NRCC Convoyer for looking after the birds so well after the 2 day holdover. They would also like to express their thanks to David Shirley for the use of his truck allowing them to transport their birds all year to the marking station in comfort…while their old Volvo car has been living it’s life at the garage for the last couple of months! Graham and Michael won’t be sending to the NRCC Dunbar Young Bird and Old Hen races but would like to wish all members sending well and look forward to seeing everyone at the Day of Champions on Saturday November 28th .
Section H – E Emms & Son 503m/228y
Eddie starts off by saying well done to all concerned for putting the race on. Eddie’s first bird was a 3 year old late bred blue Wescott hen, which was gifted to him from George and Steve Chalkley. The hen has always been consistent to Eddie’s loft and was his second day bid from Thurso last year in 2025. Eddie is pictured holding his winning hen with his grandson Josh.
Section I – D Wilton & Son 516/4
The Section I winner from Team Wilton is a 2 year old widowhood cock, mainly Mark Bulled blood being inbred to Champion Legacy on both sides with his dam being bred from a son of Matt Rakes Indy, paired to a daughter of Legacy. This cock bird, now named Brave Heart, had already flown Dunbar twice, a distance of 338 miles and also St Boswell, a distance of 309 miles where he achieved 11th LNRC. Last year as a yearling, he achieved 9th LNRC Perth and 24th Open LNRC Berwick. When John Purton called on the Monday evening to say they were 1st Section I NRCC Thurso and also 1st LNRC they were absolutely over the moon as this was their absolute dream and aim, well done Team Wilton!
1 st Open and 1st Section F – Mr Chris Leak and Dilys King 444/434
Okay, now the hard bit…when I have to write about us! We weren’t that confident about the Lerwick race as we didn’t have our birds ready and the east wind that was forecast does not favour us living in Norfolk, however, Chris was much more confident about Thurso, he had all the hens sitting eggs, plus the forecast had west in the wind, ideal for us. Chris decided to send a good team, which are mainly yearlings, as he wanted to try our some of the new bloodlines he had been gifted by our good friend Gerald Delaney.
We always make a day of it with the NRCC races, getting out into the garden early, usually with a piece of cake and a few good cups of coffee! We hadn’t been sitting there long, when our first pigeon came into sight, she flew down and trapped exceptionally well, nearly knocking the back of the shed out! We weren’t expecting anything for at least another hour, so it was a complete surprise to see her. Chris was on his way to check if the ETS had registered, when another bird came and trapped exactly the same, just 30 seconds later. Chris this time managed to get into the loft when I saw another pigeon, again the pigeon trapped just like the previous two…absolutely unbelievable, those three pigeons really put a shift in without a doubt.
We then had birds dropping in throughout the afternoon, these birds though, trapped as if they had come back from their 20 mile training toss rather flying 444 miles! While these birds were dropping in, we thought dare we think about how good those first three pigeons were or were we just kidding ourselves.
One of my roles within the NRCC, is to notify the Open winner once Steve Howells, Race Secretary has phoned me informing of who has won. When I took the call from Steve, he informed me there was a provisional 1st Open winner, and he had got their telephone number for me…so he started to read it out and I started to write it down, until I realised it was our telephone number!! I couldn’t believe it, saying have we really won, have we really won!! We had never won an Open NRCC race before and to win Thurso, and then later finding we had taken 1st 2 nd and 3rd Open too was unimaginable, as I am writing this report now, we still can’t quite believe it! I also had a message from an NRCC stalwart, saying he could never remember anyone taking the first three top spots from Thurso before, to say we are over the moon is an understatement. Our winning pigeon, a yearling now known as Miss Sneaky is a Willy Jacobs. Chris bred her from birds gifted to us by our good friend Gerald Delaney at O’Roory Hill Stud, Northern Ireland. Last year as a youngster, she flew 244 miles from Berwick, taking 1st Fed by 6 clear minutes. This year, we sent her to Fraserburgh where she finished 5 th Open, 4th Section, 1st Fed. Our second pigeon, Miss Blue is a yearling distance hen, she is out of John Wills bloodlines, again bred by Chris from birds gifted from Gerald Delaney. This is the first time for us trying these bloodlines out. Our third pigeon, another yearling, was The Boss. We bought this cock bird last year at the Norwich North Road Championship Club Futurity Auction from the winning partnership of Gary Hoyles and Paul & Ryan Pratt. He was the 4th futurity bird home from Berwick 244 miles, and picked up us, Gary, Paul and Ryan £1,100. We then put him into the NRCC YB Dunbar race where he finished 10th Open, 1st Section, 1st Fed. We named him The Boss last year as he dominated the lofts…and still does! We would like to thank everyone who has phoned and messaged us, it really has been quite emotional.
The NRCC thanks PJ Lofts for supporting and sponsoring the Thurso race. Known throughout the pigeon fraternity, Paul and Jayne are in attendance at most of the major pigeon shows, where no doubt you will have seen them! Based in Friskney, Lincolnshire, they stock everything a pigeon fancier needs and more! They also offer the added convenience of an online store.
Dilys King
