Birds still facing harder conditions to get home

AS THE current pigeon racing season progresses, expectations on the part of Border fanciers that the racing conditions might change from the challenge they have presented all season long, to more favourable circumstances for the birds, have not materialised.

While the average flying speeds posted in the most recent races from Beaufort West in the Cape were considerably faster than in the previous two events, they still testified to the fact that the birds had to work hard to reach their home lofts.

In the Any-age race it took the first arrival just more than six hours to cover the 500km distance to Ian Ristow’s loft.

The speed was 81.50km/hr, while that of the second pigeon flown by Ristow’s Northerns clubmate, Tinus Marais, was 81.46 km/hr.

Third position was taken by Charles Benn’s (Abbotsford) bird at 81.38 km/hr.

Marais had the satisfaction of clocking seven of the top-13 birds on the result sheet, a quite memorable performance.

The first of the country birds landed at the loft of Mario Ferreira in Stutterheim with a flying speed of 78.69 km/hr.

In the Yearling race, where the birds were liberated an hour before the older birds, the result sheet reveals a reversal of fortunes for the East London fliers.

Here it was the Queenstown lofts that reigned supreme. Johan van der Mescht clocked two birds a second apart to take the honours from Andries Smit, whose first bird was only six seconds off the winning pace.

The only two coastal birds to figure in the top ten were Abbotsford entries from the Beach Boys (5th) and Simon Amos Brown (6th). As in the Any-age race, Van der Mescht emulated Marais in taking three of the top-five positions.

In both races, fanciers had to contend with sporadic arrivals of their pigeons and it took 80 minutes and 75 minutes to fill the result sheet (top-100 positions) in the Any-age and Yearling races respectively, again indicative of the difficult flying conditions. — DDC