About Us
Who We Are
I first started racing the Busschaert family back in 1991. The base of these birds has always been through Ted Faber’s famous “Red Rum” 11 races as a yearling – 10 x 1st prizes. My brother Tommy had 2 sons of Red Rum via Paul Smith (Regency Lofts) and Eddie Wright (Fountainhead Lofts). Both these cocks bred multiple winners, and Paul Smith cock was the Sire of “Bingo” a 1982 hen that went on to win 6 x 1st including 1st fed Skibbereen and the 2nd best velocity from a mass release of 31,000 birds beaten by a bird on decimals that was flying 25 miles shorter.
When Tommy finished racing I kept a group of his Red Rum birds and also obtained all the stock birds of the famous “Harry Clinton” from South Belfast who was racing out of his skin with the “Red Rum” and “Nellie” lines from “Fountainhead”. His famous son of Red Rum – a cheq cock called “Harry” was an amazing stock bird, and over the next few years I blended all these lines together.
Right from the start they produced winners. They won from 10 miles to 500 miles. I got one pair from Harry Clinton that were from Keith Gaut “The Dark Destroyer” these were the parents of an amazing cock called “Golden Eye” who was on loan at the time to Alan Darragh. This cock had produced 10 x 1st prize winners from his first 11 eggs. I ended up buying “Golden Eye” and he went on to produce 23 different 1st prize winners.
He and his offspring were blended into the Red Rum blood and kept winning for me and a lot of other fanciers i.e. Gary Gibson got his first ever birds from here and was winning right away. Jackie McErlean got his first birds here and won his first Ulster Fed Open with them. One Cheq w/F hen bred 10 x 1st. Eamon Wright took the loan of my stock team for a year when I got cancer and those y.birds kept him winning for years after.
In 1993 I gave 6 ybs to my friend Pat Tabb, one of these was a small blue cock “Coca-Cola”, he went on to win 6 x 1st and also 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th federation, also 2nd, 5th, and 9th in the Penzance Championship Race. When Pat sold up he was purchased for £1150 by Heno Byrne in Dublin, but was left here to be paired on the Bull System with my own hens. He produced scores of winners over the years. His Sire had 5 x 1st and was 27 open Dinard and his dam lost many races through bad trapping – the hen was broke and raced to 3 different lofts and won good prizes in each loft – her last race was Dinard were she finished 44 open.
