Bruce Oakley wins the Queensland 10000
By Peter Matthews
St Lawrence 530 km
It was a beautiful day for a race with quite a crowd of local and interstate participants mingling and chatting about
the only subject we all had in common, pigeons. Jim and Andrea Smith, Joe Jackson,
Ian Goodall, Bruce and Kathryn Oakley, Ron Wheeler, Graham and Linda Percival, Graham and Anne Alabaster. Bill Baker, Jason Nicholson, Dave Testa, Jaie Courtney Bruce Kehlet, Peter Matthews, Rob Lindsey, Richard
and Margaret Balke and Terry Ravet from Yamba. Chris and Sharon Thomas came from Cessnock. Reg Anderson came from New Zealand and Steve Parkyn travelled all the way from Geelong
Vic. The auctioneer for the day was Ron Wheeler.
John &Allison Simpson released 111 birds from St. Lawrence 530 km north of the loft. Andrea, his beautiful
partner attended to the barbecue. Bruce Kehlet assisted the timing system and
hosting of the crowd until Jim returned from the race point. Chris Thomas did a top job looking after the books on race day
and organizing all the Calcutta’s and pools.
1st Race: Agnes Waters 20/7/2008
-150mls 1st Steve Klump mid north coast 2nd Bruce
Oakley Maryborough, 3rd Steve Pradella
W.A.
2nd Race Yeppoon 250mls 10/08/2008. 1st
Bruce Oakley Maryborough, 2nd I & D Eggleton, Grafton
and 3rd N Jarvis-V.I.P.lofts ,
3rd
Race St.Lawrence 350mls-530klm held on 31/8/2008 1st Bruce Oakley Maryborough, 2nd Joe Jackson Rockhampton,
3rd I & D Eggleton, Grafton, 4th Ken Harris
from Cessnock.
Jaie Courtney won the loft trainers
race released half hour after main race
and won 1,000 dollars.
Not only did Bruce Oakley win 1st and 2nd positions in the two preceding races. I first spotted three birds diving for the loft from the northeast.
Bruce’s O’Brien Harrison x Silver Shadow Van Loon ran into the trap at 7 hours 25 minutes 14 seconds thus
winning $6000 in prize money, $296 in the Calcutta and $105
in the $1 pool. Bruce and his wife decided to rub salt into the wounds of the hopefuls in the big event by predicting the
arrival of his bird to the exact minute and cleaned out that pool as well. The
other two birds momentarily hesitated and subsequently took the silver and bronze medals for the event. I & D Eggleton also put in a consistent effort with two places in the top three races so congratulations
to another marathon effort and top pigeons.
Second was Joe Jackson who took second and $10, $20 and $50 pools. Ian
Eggleston from Grafton was third, a monumental effort for three very great athletes and full congratulations and admiration
to their breeders. The others were so far behind I could have had a hot lunch and still be in time to watch to stragglers.
56 of the 111 returned during
the afternoon, that night and next morning many showing signs of falcon attack. How depressing for Bruce and I as our hopefuls were never seen to this day.
Prize money for the first two races was 1st 500, 2nd $250, 3rd $150, 4th $75 and
5th $25
Prize money for the main race was 1st $6000, 2nd $2000, 3rd $1000, 4th $500 and
5th $250, 6th to 10th $50
4th Ken Harris-Cessnock
5th Steve
Bailey-Cessnock
6th Ken Tucker-Rockhampton
7th Steve Parkyn-Geelong
8th I & D Eggleton
9th Norm Milner &J Manzelman-Rockhampton
10th John Austin-Kingston
Jim thanks all those that supported this event and especially to the quality of birds that he was entrusted to
protect.
Next year’s event is now being planned all enquiries to Jim Smith 32
Enterprise Road Veteran via Gympie 4570 phone 0754833953 mobile 0417780385
Email: jamessmith@spiderweb.com.au
Bank details J V Smith Queensland
$10000
Bendigo Bank Acc 633000 134 266 063
Cost is $100/per entry, for every
two entries there will be allocated one spare @ $20 deposit. The spare
is to be fully paid up before the first race if both nominated birds
are still in the series. The first position prize
money of $10,000 will be paid providing there are 200 entries registered before the main race. All entries are
to be received at the lofts between November 2008 and February 2009.