Before I took on this bronze commission I have to admit I was rather ignorant about gaming or fighting cockerels and the history behind these most amazing birds. Our history is littered with similar cruel activities. Whilst a lot of these sports have been made illegal, they still carry on in many parts of the world, when you begin to study these most amazing birds.

Cock fighting has been around for hundreds of years. In the wild, cockerels naturally fight to establish their own territory but rarely incur serious injuries as they aren’t trapped in a small area and can escape from one another! But as a sport, they are trained to fight. They often have their combs and wattles cut off to avoid them being injured during the fight. During a cockfight, two cockerels are placed into a ring and are forced to fight until one falls to its death or is badly injured. In order to irritate these poor birds, the cockerels are tormented by having their beaks and feathers pulled in order to anger them. This would all go on with the crowd watching. On top of which, they are armed with blades attached to their legs which assist in the blood bath! Hard to imagine, when you see their sheer elegance in the wild.

So when I was approached by a proud owner of a modern gaming cockerel and several of his chickens, I was intrigued to know about the breed and their characteristics and set forth on this amazing commission. It was lovely to see ‘Posiedon’ (his name) roaming around the garden together with many other much loved animals. There were dogs, tortoises, doves to name a few and I was able to take my time to study how he walked, and behaved on a very cold blustery February afternoon!

In this bronze wildlife sculpture, I really wanted to capture his distinct stance and very protective and superior nature to those hens around him despite his rather petite size! So you will see I have over exaggerated his elegant legs, and incredibly fine claws, as the gaming cockerel marches through the garden, for all to see. I was not surprised to learn how instinctively protective gaming birds are with their hens – such galant men.

The lovely owner has written a few words about her experience of commissioning me to carry out this bronze wild life sculpture :

“After searching for a considerable amount of time for a suitable sculptor to model my very precious Modern Game cockerel, I came across Jane Shaw and her work just by chance. I immediately knew that she could do a brilliant job of catching the bird’s distinct action and enormous personality.

Jane spent a whole afternoon photographing the tiny cockerel and his many hens just scratching around naturally in my garden. The finished sculpture far exceeded my expectations. Jane captured his exaggerated and very distinctive high ‘goose’ stepping movement, unique to his breed, to a T and also caught his busy body and rather pugnacious attitude to life. There is no doubt from Jane’s amazing sculpture who rules our roost, and I am thrilled that I took a leap of faith and chose Jane. The result will give me many years of great pleasure. ”

Alix, Gloucestershire