THE RACING PIGEON 26 APRIL 2024
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My story really starts in the early evening of Friday 26th June 2015, when another good friend of mine, Mike Shepherd, phoned me to tell me that Bob & Anthony Besant had probably won 1st Open in the Agen International, flown that day. I can’t say how delighted I was getting that wonderful news. My phone never stopped ringing all evening after that, as the news spread around the local pigeon fancy that the International winner was in Surrey. It was about 9 o’clock when the calls slowed up that I found a message on my answer phone from Anthony, saying, ‘dad asked me to give you a phone call to tell you that we have won 1st Open International from Agen today’. I rang Bobby straight back as he got his second bird home from Agen, but as he was clocking the bird, he managed to say, ‘Yes mate we have won the International today and congratulations it is a son of your hen ‘Half Crown’. It was a great buzz to hear those words on my phone that night, I had bred the dam of a 1st Open International winner with 10,500 birds competing. I was so pleased for Bobby and Anthony, it was the crowning glory on a great pigeon racing career spanning over fifty years. We did briefly talk again on the phone that evening, but Bobby was on ‘cloud nine’ celebrating at home with his family. After the dust had settled, Betty and I spent a nice Tuesday afternoon with Bob and Angela in their Worcester Park back garden, drinking tea and having some wonderful ‘banter’ about the Agen race that had taken place weekend before. It is not common knowledge that Bobby is a very good gardener and his lawn and borders looked brilliant. He told me when it comes to
his pigeons and he had a brilliant blue cock name, ‘Kenny’, which had a long list of positions in the Federation and he was bred by Bob’s late brother, Kenny Besant, who was another great pigeon racer in his own right. I must say Betty and I really enjoyed that Tuesday afternoon in Bob and Angela’s company. The Besant’s named their Agen International winner ‘Noble Dream’ and their wonderful Champion was a two year dark cock, raced on the Widowhood system. Bobby told me he thought it was a decent time when he came in from Agen and ‘Noble Dream’ did his usual party trick of landing in next doors tree before coming in to the loft to be clocked. He has won several premier positions before his Agen (499 miles) International win, including 3rd Three Borders Federation, 4th SMT Combine (699 birds) Nort sur Erdre (278 miles) as a yearling in the 2014 season. I handled him on my visit to the Besant’s home after the race and he handled very like a true Champion, being medium, with very good silky feathering, and looking at him in his nest box, he had a big character and pres- ences in the loft. What a great buzz it was to see and handle Bobby and Anthony’s great Champion! For a bit of interest this is the breeding details of Champion ‘Noble Dream’. His sire, ‘Tuff Gory’, was bred by Ian & Georgina French of Evesham. ‘Tuff Glory’ is bred from a son of Brian Denney’s Champion ‘Tuff Nut’ and a daughter of Paul Kendal’s Champion ‘Morning Glory’ mating, which are two of the best pigeons that have ever raced in the NFC Pau Grand National. What a pair of stock pigeons! The dam of Champion ‘Noble Dream’ was the dark pied hen, ‘Half Crown’ and she was
Bob & Anthony Besant.
the gardening, Angela is director and he is the ‘work horse’. Bob and Angela have two sons and their lives these days very much revolve around their lovely grandchildren, which we can relate to, as we have five grandchildren ourselves. Angela is from a pigeon racing family herself, with her late father being the Kingston ‘ace’ Channel flyer, Arthur Payne. I remember Arthur was always the one to look for when we were racing from France in the old Kingston club all those years ago and he did a lot of his pigeon training on his push bike. In later years, Bobby helped Arthur out with
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