Carter brothers strike goldin Miller Cup race
DROGHEDA pigeon fanciers Gerry and David Carter have been celebrating their biggest-ever success after landing the sport’s prestigious Miller Gold Cup.
Ireland has four federations in the sport and the East Coast one alone sent some 2,000 pigeons to St Malo in France for the race - and the Carter brothers’ five-year-old blue hen was the first of only a handful of birds that made it back to Irish shores over the three-day race time.
All the birds were released from the French coastal town at 6.30am last Friday week, and the Carters, from Boyle O’Reilly Terrace, timed theirs - now named Anna Rose after Gerry’s granddaughter
- at 5.14am the following day which represents a velocity of 619 yards per minute.
The brothers, who are members of Drogheda Invitation Racing Pigeon Club, originally inherited their love of the sport from their father Thomas and are well known for their consistent performances on the channel, being a regular name on the federation open results sheets.
This champion bird was previously first from the club from St Malo in 2015 and fourth from the club from Bude in Cornwall.
This year the hen was across the water twice in both Talbenny (Wales) and Bude, and in the lead up to St Malo she was trained as far as Leopardstown on the training lorry of John Flood.
This is the first Miller Cup success for the Drogheda Invitation club in half a century, since victories by now-deceased members Mickey Brannigan and Joe Magnier, and the Carter brothers would like to thank all of the fanciers who have got in contact to congratulate them.