Chris Mav – Distance Star

Fifty-three year old Chris Mav is a popular member of the South Australian Homing Pigeon Association – having won 3 Association races from Marla, Ouyen and Hamilton – and Border Village in the SA Long Distance Club

He has raced in the East Suburban, West Torrens, Hyde Park, Metro and North Suburban clubs … and has cultivated some of the best long distance birds in Australia.

Chris started his association with racing pigeons in the late 70’s.

His brother Peter used to race in the East Suburban club, so he started racing there with his cousin Forti Andonopoulos.

They were gifted birds by various members with many flyers breeding them youngsters and encouraging them in the sport.

A lot of flyers had birds down from Club flyer Keith Wickham, and Chris has a lot of that blood in his loft today, along with Marafiote, Goodger, Pryor, Dordin and Horseman

When East Suburban closed down they moved to Hyde Park and the racing bug has been in his blood ever since

Chris loves the calmness of being around race and breeding birds, letting them out and having them come back … and his love for them has evolved from there

Success has been pretty good for this younger flyer

He has won Border Village, Marla, Ouyen and Hamilton – and finished second Association from Temora, Byrock and Inglewood, as well as scoring a host of other placings … and along the way creating a history of being around the mark in most long distance events

Chris has had a lot of help from other flyers

He initally got birds from the Late Joe Schiavonne and Terry Castle .. and they used to get together two or three times a week and have barbecues and talk pigeons , and they were like a small little family

Eventually when Chris moved out of his parents house and shifted 20 kilometres across town he made new friends, with Greorge Tsonis helping him out with some good information and gifted well-bred birds that George had purchased

From there Chris decided he had to work harder and get more competitive, while selecting his stock a lot harder.

He made some good friends during his time at the West Torrens club, including Bill Marcou, John Kokalakis, Peter Burke, Steve Sommerton and all the other guys who made it a very social, accepting and successful club

Chris then moved to North Suburban because work commitments meant it was easier to basket out of the SAHPA headquarters- rather than backtrack those extra miles to Lockleys and the West Torrens clubrooms

An even tougher edge and more improvement was needed at North Suburban with its large membership and powerful flyers

A few years later Chris, and George Tsonis received invitations from several other big flyers including Jim Marafiote to become foundation members of the METRO club and they had to lift their game even further, competing against some of the most powerful flyers in Australia… and taking their racing to a whole new level

But It’s now turned full circle with Mav and Tsonis back competing at North Suburban

Chris says in the late 1980’s he spent a lot of time working with just three key pairs of stockbirds, with their progeny flying out the program, and producing a 4th Association from Canberra.

He has been fine tuning his breeding, infusing blood from his long line of winners and placegetters, and it has produced winners for other flyers – including Rick Drew’s SAHPA 5-bird Special winner last year

The commraderie between flyers is as important as race success to Chris, and he regularly hosts barbeques at his home for fellow flyers – its something he picked up from his days at West Torrens

Those chats include talking everything pigeons, including how to make the sport better and how to make it grow.

Chris says there is a particular thrill in getting birds from distance races… when they land you know they have a real go.

When his Byrock second place-getter landed he was just sitting there saying – I hope its my Byrock bird – not a trainer or another bird – and when it clocked in and he realized it was from Byrock he couldn’t believe his luck

Chris says racing pigeons are very special birds … and any race over 8 hours – hard, like 60 kilometres an hour – or a little bit less is like awesome to escape the hawks.

“As the distances get longer and their flying down to 50 kilometres an hour – or 40 kilometres an hour – it just amazes me how they get away from all the predators – like its a huge effort on the day – let alone the next day or the day after.”

“I just prefer the long distance races because of my shift work – its just too hard to get the birds ready too early cause, being on shift work you cant let em out every day – I’m not home to get em in”

Feeding is a key to Chris’s success, Clean uncontaminated feed is one of the main things in a pigeon’s life He mixes it up a bit so that the birds are interested in what they are going to eat – in stead of just looking at it and saying “I had that yesterday”

Mostly while breeding its peas, and he also buy breeders pellets – that’s what he breeds off … but once they shift into the race cage they’ll also get wheat, sometimes safflower and maize … along with spinich and grit

Training is initally done by Chris on his own because he doesn’t want his birds to get caught up in the mob and go the wrong way, or spend too much time at the release point

He like to know how birds will leave the point where they’re released from – might go 25 kilometres something like that – and do that up to 8 times – He’s not in any rush to go out any further unless they show me that they’re handling it quite well, and then if they handle it quite well he’ll jump up a bit – double that or triple that … depends how they’re coming home from the tosses.

With the advent of Benzing live many flyers spend less time at the club, but come Association races when times go up its a chance for people to show appreciation for the efforts of owners and their birds

Chris says … You accept results as they happen, and if you’re not in it … you just work harder!