Jock
Reid Of Scotland
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Jock
Reid of Stenhousemuir, Scotland, is an immortal
of the sport of pigeon racing. In his time he
was one of the most consistent fanciers in Britain.
From as early 1912 at the age of 8 he kept pigeons
and in due course it became a passion that could
not be extinguished. He began racing in 1923 and
his achievements over the years were second to
none.
The
base of his family were stock from J. Cope of
Congleton, McIntyre Brothers of Greengairs, and
Berry of Maccesfield. However Reid was a person
who was always seeking to improve on improvement
and over the years many crosses were introduced
to the loft at Stenhousemuir. This was not a willy-
nilly process for our subject was careful about
his introductions, knowing that the base was sound
and being careful not to wreck it. The intro's
included Osmans after the founders dispersal sale
which fitted well into his original families.
Some of the former originally contained Osman
bloodlines. Another introduction was pigeons from
W. Steele and these helped to produce Reid's Big
Hen- one of the greatest racers that Scotland
ever produced. Other crosses contained bloodlines
from one of Germany's best flyers. Implying as
opined that Reid was constantly trying to improve.
It
was this mentality which led to the birth of some
great performers at the distance. To name but
a few at random: Tryst Supreme who was 78th Rennes,
Tryst Beauty who was 6th at 518 miles, Tryst Queen
who was 1st from Dol at 525 miles, Tryst Superb
who scored 16th and 34th at a distance of 525
miles. Bearing in mind that those thoroughbreds
were flying one of the toughest routes in the
world, from France across the English channel
into Scotland. Incidentally the preface 'Tryst'
was the name of the golf course beside which Jock
Reid had his loft.
In
management Jock Reid was a practitioner of the
open loft system and he was a great advocate of
bean feeding. In fact all of his many successes
were based upon beans and maize. The system of
management was simplicity in itself. One wonders
how Reid and others were so successful in a period
of time when the complexity of modern feeding
methods were absent. Perhaps it lies with each
individual pigeon and not the tendency of man
to complicate matters for one of the best racers
of my earlier years was fed with 'Brock', that
is, skins of potatoes and other meal throw aways.
Its owner as I have written in the past went around
the streets of a small Irish town collecting brock
for a couple of pigs and his pigeons shared in
their meals.
As
an example of the consistency of Jock Reid we
noted that he began racing in 1923, well approximately
50 years later our subject in 1972 was still the
person to beat as he won the Federation old bird
average right through to 518 miles. The latter
is but an example, plucked at random, of the racing
achievements of one of Britain's greatest pigeoners.
His nation, Scotland, should remember him with
pride.

by: Liam O Comain
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