For Geoff and Catherine Cooper, whose main aim is the International races, where they have won 4 x 1st International, this was a huge disappointment.
In 2022 the old birds, yearlings and young birds were flown North, with the final races from Scotland. Although this was a turn around in the opposite direction, the birds adapted well and scored many top positions including 2nd Classic, 3rd National and the Best Average for the two longest Classic Races.
Only one International old bird race could be entered in 2022, this was from Tarbes where the birds won 1st, 2nd, 4th Provincial 7th, 10th and 32nd National.
This year the young birds had only one sea race where they won 1st, 3rd, 4th, 8th, 9th,10th, 11th, 12th and 14th Provincial in the Classic.
OLR
To add further interest they once again entered some birds in the Victoria Falls One loft Race. Although the birds as a family are not expirienced in One Loft Racing they put up some excellent performances, with only small teams entered.
Following on from 2020 Victoria Falls series of races, where they won 5th in the very hard Hotspot 4 and 3rd, 49th positions in the final, and 2021 where in the final Enduro race a grandchild of Farmer George and Wollongong won 8th, and the nestmate won 60th Super Ace Bird. This year they had another good result with 55th final and 46th Super Ace.
The dam of 6th final for PIPA Breeding was the hen that won 3rd final 2021 and is 100% Cooper blood.
The Cooper family of birds have proved excellent breeders of top One Loft Race birds, Hussain Baban purchased a son of Farmer George x Wollongong paired to a daughter of New Laureaat and Kleine Jade, bred by Geoff and Catherine. This bird has been a prolific breeder, birds with his blood have won 1st Oman OLR, a sister to this winner was 16th Abu dabi OLR. 10th Safa OLR was also down from this bird.
Another Cooper hen, the same way bred as Hussain Baban’s star breeder has also been a prolific OLR breeder. Maurice O’Donnell purchased this hen in a charity auction and it bred him a cock bird which won in the Who Dares Wins OLR, 1st Hotspot 3, 6th in the final and was also a 1st double gold medal winner. After the WDW auction this cock was purchased by Bobby Dalziel. Bobby bred three pigeons from this cock and entered them into three different OLR’s. One of these birds won 67th final in the South Africa Million Doller OLR, another was entered into the Derby Arona OLR and arrived home with the winning bunch to take 19th final, and the third bird was entered into the Derby Maspalomas OLR in Gran Canaria where it won 4th open.
Over land or sea it makes no difference to the Cooper family of birds, whether it’s 200kms, 430 kms or 725 kms, the strike rate of these birds in OLR’s is phenomenal.
Together with the amazing racing results put up by the Coopers, this family has to be one of the most versatile families in Europe.
