A leading pigeon fancier is facing expulsion from the sport after admitting cheating in one of its most prestigious races to win prizes worth £11,500.
Eamonn Kelly, from Didcot in Oxfordshire, successfully defended his title in the Tarbes National last weekend, after one of 14 birds he registered for the race was recorded as having flown home from Tarbes in southern France with the fastest average time.
In fact, it later emerged, Kelly had sent one set of birds to the south of France to be released but calculated a fake winning time based on the microchip of another pigeon that never left his loft in Oxfordshire.
Kelly, who due to his long experience in the sport had been trusted as a race controller, now faces a possible life ban from the National Flying Club, which will convene a disciplinary meeting next week to decide his fate.
More than 42,000 people keep pigeons in the UK, and its benign reputation can belie a fiercely competitive pastime in which races are hotly contested and often lucrative, and individual winning birds can change hands for thousands. Victory in the Tarbes race, one of racing’s blue riband events in the UK, won Kelly £1,500 in cash and a new Ford Fiesta worth £10,000.
In a statement released to the Sun, Kelly said: “I was tempted and fell, a decision I will regret for the rest of my life. A sport that I love so much, that has given me untold pleasure and above all friendship, I have thrown all away.”
The newspaper said Kelly, who owns 350 birds, had generated a winning time that suggested one of his birds had made the 580-mile journey at an average speed of 40mph. But suspicions were raised when other birds in the field, averaging 39mph, were still miles from home.
In a statement Phil Curtis, the NFC’s chairman, described the incident as “unfortunate for the sport of pigeon racing”.
A club spokesman said its management committee would meet to consider Kelly’s punishment. Under the rules of the Royal Pigeon Racing Association, the sport’s governing body, sanctions can range from suspension to a limitless expulsion from the sport.
