Weird and wonderful event photography – World Hen Racing Championship 2015

Jack Allsop (overall winner) with ‘Cooked It’ in disbelief at the speed of his hen

World Hen Racing Championship 2015, held at the Barley Mow, Bonsall, Derbyshire

Andy Botham and daughter Jess Botham (18) with their two hens. Andy’s hen ‘Save our NHS’ is a previous world record holder

Jess Botham (18 – right) with her hen ‘Save our NHS’ on the starting line

Tensions run high, and any hen starting a fight will lead to a disqualification – Gandalf the hen (right) has a history of violence (seen attacking the Colonel)

Charlotte Gibson (14 – centre) shouts encouragement to her hen Blossom

Hen Starter Kits being sold for 50 pence each

The tradition dates back more than 100 years

Anyone who knows me will know I’ve got a bit of a fondness for the weird and wonderful and this weekend’s event photography and filming was no exception.

Along with my wife Pooja (she was drafted in to help with some of the camera work, and did a sterling job) we went to the World Hen Racing Championships 2015.

This year I went with the aim of photographing it for the national picture desks, but also to create a short film with some of the wonderful/colourful characters at the event.

The event was held at the Barley Mow pub, in a lovely Derbyshire village called Bonsall, and is organised by landlord and landlady, David Wragg and Colette Dewhurst.

The winner, with World Record beating (no pun intended) time of 3.8 seconds, was ‘Cooked It’ owned by Jack Allsop-Smith. Needless to say the hen has won the chance not to be cooked, and will (hopefully) remain a family pet! Jack and his grandfather couldn’t share the training involved to achieve the hen’s rapid speed, attributing it to an Allsop family secret.

It was a great event to film and photograph. Truly a great British spectacle, and fortunately one of man we’re blessed with in the UK. Where else in the world do you get hens ‘plucked’ to the post in an action packed race?

You can read all about it in today’s Times (03/08/2015) and today’s Daily Telegraph.

The copy was written up by Mark Branagan, a reporter I’ve worked with for a number of years, for the national papers on Sunday.

The final short film will be put out through an agency I work very closely with these days, Barcroft Media. So time will tell where that ends up!

ORDER PRINTS

If you’ve come here for prints prints from the event, they’re available through website, you can find them here: https://jonathanpow.com/1u7l

ORDER A PHOTOGRAPHY (i.e.) PHOTOGRAPHIC COMMISSIONS)

As ever, if you know of any quirky events coming up, drop me an email jp@jonathanpow.com. Also, believe it or not, this is my job (a bizarre job isn’t it?). If you’d like to commission event photography (I work for many charities and organisations on a number of different projects), give me a call on 07901 617571.

I’m currently based in Manchester, but have car, will and do travel. (Soon to be moving back to Yorkshire!)

This entry was posted on Monday, August 3rd, 2015 at 1:59 PM. It is filed under Editorial & Press Photography, Photo Jobs Blog and tagged with Animal, Derbyshire, Quirky. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.