Amino acids.

[NeilA]

King I dont think regular winners are homers but some winners are definitely one offs
I did say people keep homers that I do know to be true
they turn in 15 min after the winners and keep there perch there not racers
Now they may have been racers and the fancier has destroyed the speed / motivation in them but yes I believe most birds kept are homers . I will have some in my yearling for sure
I haven’t in my 7 old cocks as 5 are fed winners another my most consistent cock with 4 or 5 club wins and a pigeon with 2nd 8th fed last year plus 4th fed Saturday that’s my 7 unfortunately one is out of action due to a peregrine attack
So I have 7 at the start of then 4 retired at stock 1 killed or missing flying around home 2 lost racing one a triple fed winner one a double
So in 6 years that’s all I have found . I have had one off fed winners but only
14 good pigeons the rest were one off or homers
say I breed 40 a year so 20 cocks a year that 120 bred and 14 good ones
I think I have one to add but it’s a yearling so had 4 yb races 2 old bird races it’s won 1st 5th 5h fed. So he could be one
Even so 15 total so how many homers are in lofts that are 3/4/5 year old

[NeilA]

I’m not disagreeing with you Neil. I used to be much harder on mine than I am now but since coming back into the sport and having my own business to run I haven’t really had the same amount of time. Also as said before when I restarted aiming at the distance but have this past couple of years gone back to club racing, sprint racing which is also why I have gone back to widowhood. At the moment I am mainly using the same pigeons but know I need to be harder on them. Our longest race in the West of England South Road Combine is only 118 miles for me. We have 7 races at 34 miles, ridiculous I know. Hopefully we are going to go with the new Three Countries which will at least go up to 168 miles. I used to have my widowers winning from 90 miles to 350 miles, same pigeons. The other trouble with our combine is the fan of the combine which is over 75 miles South to North and the wind plays a big part on which route they take. It would be difficult for a pigeon to break from 1,500 birds on its own when the race is only 34 miles. Last week they circled at the race point for 3/4 minutes before clearing. That’s me finished before it’s begun from such a short race. One of our club members flies 57 miles from the same race point.

I agree that’s not giving true racing
We have a big south rd fed here maybe 50 miles wide sending 3000 birds to me your never getting fair results I can tell the club that will win the fed by the wind before the lib
The trouble is density of lofts my fed is to small 12 miles for modern day but it gives cracking fair races due to that and even then if the wind hits 12mph you know where the birds will be
Trouble is it will die out as it’s living in the past when we had many more lofts
So what do we do become a wide fed where the wind decides or die out

[Murray]

I did say people keep homers that I do know to be true
they turn in 15 min after the winners and keep there perch there not racers

That is the truth, Neil.
Pigeons that reliably arrive 100 yards a minute after the winner, they are just homing. Or no good.
As an old jockey I am certain that any team of young birds can be taught to fly with a bit of urgency, or as we call it, race. It's like training racehorses. By training them upsides a horse with a bit of natural speed they learn to extend themselves.
The young pigeons may not be bred from the latest fastest bloodlines, but you can still instill the drive to break quickly from the release and head for home in the front bunch, as best they can.

[NeilA]

I did say people keep homers that I do know to be true
they turn in 15 min after the winners and keep there perch there not racers

That is the truth, Neil.
Pigeons that reliably arrive 100 yards a minute after the winner, they are just homing. Or no good.
As an old jockey I am certain that any team of young birds can be taught to fly with a bit of urgency, or as we call it, race. It's like training racehorses. By training them upsides a horse with a bit of natural speed they learn to extend themselves.
The young pigeons may not be bred from the latest fastest bloodlines, but you can still instill the drive to break quickly from the release and head for home in the front bunch, as best they can.

Great post Murray
I read post where people say ybs that arrive late are learning well they maybe but if it keeps happening there only learning bad habits to drift al over the countryside yet some even say they like there birds to do that . What would anyone like about there pigeons roaming the countryside when they should be racing for A to B
My babies only get 4-5 races mainly as I don’t get darkness due to time /work plus I know after this they will be behind by 5 mins or so as they can’t fly at the same pace
But what I do it get them roaming before training they can be gone for a hour or two on return they must trap instantly
When it comes to training from day 1 I don’t want them taking a hour from 5 or 10miles the need to be out and in my loft in as quicker time as it’s possible so the habit stays with them
They must get 8-9 weeks of training ever day if I can no more than 20/25 miles but out the basket and home
All the roaming should be done earlier in there life or even earlier in the day if your training them real young the training is brain washing them for the future A to B no messing none of the rubbish it’s taken them two hours do it’s done them some good

[Murray]

Famous Dutch racer Ad Schaerlaeckens is quite blunt about it.
He describes the idea that youngsters taking a long time to fly a short toss being 'good for them' is utter nonsense. All that is happening is they are losing their confidence.
He is a wise old head and makes the observation that years ago you could jump them out to ten miles and then 20 miles and all would be good. For reasons we don't understand if you try that these days you stand a better than average chance of having a crash training toss and lose most of them.
I totally agree. If they beat me home from, say, 7 miles, great
I will take them back there next time just to reinforce the lesson. And so on out the road in easy stages.
I know blokes who have always gone way out for the first toss. They don't tell you much, but they aren't doing it now.....

[Anthony webster]

I did say people keep homers that I do know to be true
they turn in 15 min after the winners and keep there perch there not racers

That is the truth, Neil.
Pigeons that reliably arrive 100 yards a minute after the winner, they are just homing. Or no good.
As an old jockey I am certain that any team of young birds can be taught to fly with a bit of urgency, or as we call it, race. It's like training racehorses. By training them upsides a horse with a bit of natural speed they learn to extend themselves.
The young pigeons may not be bred from the latest fastest bloodlines, but you can still instill the drive to break quickly from the release and head for home in the front bunch, as best they can.

I'm same Murray been fetched up my whole life around horses n running dogs my grandad all ways said it cist the same to feed a good un as it does a bad un, it's so true,
But thets talk straight how many lads fill there team with direct children of winners
Most have 40 baby's 25 will be bred of homers 10 or more of new stock with nice pedigree the winner 3,4 generations back in pedigree and may be 2 or 4 baby's bred of tidy birds
What chance do they have they do this Yr in Yr out,
If they nutted the rubbish off Sunday after last ob race OK they might look in loft n it looks empty but there on the right path to start doing better.

[king]

Famous Dutch racer Ad Schaerlaeckens is quite blunt about it.
He describes the idea that youngsters taking a long time to fly a short toss being 'good for them' is utter nonsense. All that is happening is they are losing their confidence.
He is a wise old head and makes the observation that years ago you could jump them out to ten miles and then 20 miles and all would be good. For reasons we don't understand if you try that these days you stand a better than average chance of having a crash training toss and lose most of them.
I totally agree. If they beat me home from, say, 7 miles, great
I will take them back there next time just to reinforce the lesson. And so on out the road in easy stages.
I know blokes who have always gone way out for the first toss. They don't tell you much, but they aren't doing it now.....

I only flew sprint in the 80s and I agree with this straight from A to B if you are sprinting. But Ads view the birds are losing their confidence may not be true in many cases (hawks ect). Because I flew the distance my birds were allowed a less strict regime when trapping from training.(this never affected them when racing) I would often take them training and I thought the birds were taking a long time coming from training. They would sometimes take a hour or more from 20 miles. Then one day my wife said the birds had ALREADY returned and gone off again! When I found this out I then asked her to write down the time they arrived home IF she saw them, she wasn't that interested really.
The reason the birds probably did this is because my birds were used to flying up to 2hrs a day. And because of working shifts I didn't want them back in the loft having only flown say 15-20 mins when training. I used to start training my birds some 8 weeks before the first race and trained every 2 or 3 days. By doing this my birds still flew 1-2 hrs everyday. In the last 4 years before I stopped racing I could count on one hand the number of YBs I lost training. I started at 7 miles and they were at 20 miles the fourth toss. I've never been the best YB flyer in my area, I won and got cards in a few, but sent them for education and fed them to just get them home rather than win, but NOBODY around me raced YBs further than me, and they still haven't.

Now back to Ads view about late birds losing their confidence. I recall taking them training one day and was unsure if they had returned already and gone off again? They had been gone for near on 2 hours when a single bird returned and after it trapped I noticed it had a broken leg. All the others return some 20mins later. So far from losing confidence it was clear the birds didn't return because they happy still flying. The bird with the broken leg returned simply because it was injured and not lacking confidence.
This approach to training YBs wouldn't probably suit most, but it worked for me.

[Anthony webster]

I like to see birds doing a to b in good time but I'm never confident until they have a nightmare toss n return in singles, once they have had the nightmare toss I'm more confident in them, I don't think u teach pigeons loads just think it's down to us to have them in good health n great weight, I say this because in 2006 I had staff van reets I was training from ryegate Hill Surrey my birds took 21 mins never circled dead straight any weather 21 mins no faster a top old flyer called John Haynes said 16 to 18 mins to me and for 3 seasons I honestly thought he was pulling my plonker in 2009 I got the cyril lambrecht pigeons I trained same place but birds took a different route I thought they had gone the wrong way but they done ryegate hill in 16 mins most tosses first race they murdered my van reets n them same pigeons still run through my pig today, I just think good birds is so so important rest in to keep us happy.

[NeilA]

I like to see birds doing a to b in good time but I'm never confident until they have a nightmare toss n return in singles, once they have had the nightmare toss I'm more confident in them, I don't think u teach pigeons loads just think it's down to us to have them in good health n great weight, I say this because in 2006 I had staff van reets I was training from ryegate Hill Surrey my birds took 21 mins never circled dead straight any weather 21 mins no faster a top old flyer called John Haynes said 16 to 18 mins to me and for 3 seasons I honestly thought he was pulling my plonker in 2009 I got the cyril lambrecht pigeons I trained same place but birds took a different route I thought they had gone the wrong way but they done ryegate hill in 16 mins most tosses first race they murdered my van reets n them same pigeons still run through my pig today, I just think good birds is so so important rest in to keep us happy.

Anthony you know Reed hill here on tne A10
I go 4/5 miles east of there this year so say 17/18 miles
2nd toss this year my hens went out flew SE the cocks went out drifted west to the A10
Just from that little difference 6 mins between them one followed the A10 the other across the fields straight home I was proper gutted
I have a pal who lives near A10 at hoddesdon he put a tracker on his the birds went down the A10 from Reed hill and turned left at the roundabout onto the Ware rd back to his .
Just two examples of why the A to B training is vital to me

[king]

I like to see birds doing a to b in good time but I'm never confident until they have a nightmare toss n return in singles, once they have had the nightmare toss I'm more confident in them, I don't think u teach pigeons loads just think it's down to us to have them in good health n great weight, I say this because in 2006 I had staff van reets I was training from ryegate Hill Surrey my birds took 21 mins never circled dead straight any weather 21 mins no faster a top old flyer called John Haynes said 16 to 18 mins to me and for 3 seasons I honestly thought he was pulling my plonker in 2009 I got the cyril lambrecht pigeons I trained same place but birds took a different route I thought they had gone the wrong way but they done ryegate hill in 16 mins most tosses first race they murdered my van reets n them same pigeons still run through my pig today, I just think good birds is so so important rest in to keep us happy.

Anthony you know Reed hill here on tne A10
I go 4/5 miles east of there this year so say 17/18 miles
2nd toss this year my hens went out flew SE the cocks went out drifted west to the A10
Just from that little difference 6 mins between them one followed the A10 the other across the fields straight home I was proper gutted
I have a pal who lives near A10 at hoddesdon he put a tracker on his the birds went down the A10 from Reed hill and turned left at the roundabout onto the Ware rd back to his .
Just two examples of why the A to B training is vital to me

Neil does the times of the birds from the same point differ in different winds? Whilst I expect it may not in training short distances, I believe it would when racing. I've lots of race results, and my old clubs winner from the same race point in different winds could be as much as 30 mins.