Re: Who dares wins OLR
Posted: Thu Oct 02, 2025 7:44 am
Personally speaking I have treated my young birds almost exactly as you have described. Bred at that time, no darkness, not over-trained by any measure but educated around the compass, stopped before the end of the race programme and rested the birds for a week during the programme so I would have a race team that wasn’t worn out going into the 2026 season.king wrote: Thu Oct 02, 2025 12:52 amWhen I first began racing in the early 70s most fanciers raced young birds to educate them. Bred around mar/April. A few races then stop them (95% raced Natural up to 200 miles in around 6 races)PeteDerby wrote: Wed Oct 01, 2025 11:35 pm I don’t know the Who Dares Wins guy save that he came to my place to pick up a stray. He seemed very genuine and was here within the hour to look after the bird. I’ve had people tell me to kill them, feed them a chuck them out, or some not even bothered to call me back. He by contrast wanted to make sure it was ok.
Second point, I happened to be in the Channel Islands the weekend of that race. If it was me I’d have brought them back given the weather, but it was clear enough at liberation time so maybe they hit rough stuff one the way?
Third point about the big losses, someone on here made a good point about One Loft birds not having to learn how to break or get back from multiple directions. That aside, I was at the loft this morning of a very successful international flyer who was telling me about the large number of very experienced flyers with excellent birds who are increasingly facing such significant losses that they are giving up due to the heartbreak. He was predicting the end of the fancy because it’s getting worse year or year and nobody knows why therefore can’t do anything about it.
It was a very sobering conversation and, sure, I’ve met people who’ve said things akin to “must have shit birds or don’t know how to fly them”, but clearly that’s not the reason as the fancier this guys were referring to are the exact opposite of that.
Today many breed very early Dec put them on darkness, start training when the birds are too old, and then try to race them like old birds. The race programs have been extended to 12 or more races with far too many short races, often going to these short races too many times.
I raced birds for over 55 years and often flew the entire program to the coast or even further with the Nationals to 350+ miles. And one thing I learnt is if you have good pigeons they don't need lots of races. I've had ybs birds fly right to 350+ miles or 200 miles or just have one race and have had good birds from all 3. (my last ever old bird winner had only one race as a yb, and even nighted out)
Maybe if fanciers treated YBs as replacements for lost old birds instead of trying to race them like old birds, they would have many more left.
I used to enjoy YB racing but shortly before I finished racing I stopped racing ybs altogether not just because of losses but I was sick of sending healthy birds to their first race only to pick up some illness in the race basket. In the last 4 years I raced, I only trained my ybs to around 50 miles and in that last 4 years could count on one hand the number of birds I lost training.
I know Ant Webster on here is doing what I would have done if I was still racing. And just train them private to the first race point.
I had exceptional young birds either bred directly by some of the UK’s leading fanciers or home bred from stock I purchased / was gifted from the same people. I looked after them well enough to have surprisingly good club, federation and national results in my first season back since the 70’s. AND YET I have lost 80% of my young birds.