UkPigeonRacing

Now I know this will be controversial and not pretending, or would either suggest, that my method is right but what do people think they gain from training?
As I have already posted in another topic you can see I’m not one for training much. For me training is just about them leaving the basket and heading for home. The distance between liberation and home is irrelevant. I think better to have a short toss with no issues than a longer toss where the birds get split by a hawk and spread in all directions.
I want birds that can think for themselves and sort themselves out, not ones trained with others from the same loft that come back in big batches with most not learning a thing. I don’t race enough pigeons for that anyway.
If I was corridor racing it might be a bit different. But I have no line of flight really in the 3Cs. If there is a bit of North in the wind and with a large number of birds heading down into Devon and Cornwall they can fly along the south coast 35 miles South of me. Another week with South in the wind they could be more inland.
Just my thoughts though.

Now this is a rare one where I think I do have a bit of something to offer.
When I was 15 I signed up as an apprentice jockey. My first boss was a tough old bugger, be were scared of him, but he was a great trainer.
He always had two year old's primed and ready for the early races. We would start by letting them slide along a furlong a little bit quicker then a little bit quicker, then two furlongs, then two furlongs a little bit quicker, and so on. They became racehorses and never even knew it had happened.
It was a method I used many times myself.

I do the same with the pigeons. I start close to home, and little by little go further, stepping out as they go faster. They become racers, and never notice it happening.
For me, training is not about teaching them the way home. Training is to teach them to get home quickly. Teaching them to fly with a bit of urgency.

Some disagree with me, but I think nearly all races are won at the start. The pigeons that are way up the road and going like the clappers while the others are still sorting themselves out, well that's half the battle.

The most successful trainers appear to me to be the ones who put the most work into them. But of course I could be wrong.

Andy wrote: Wed Aug 05, 2026 9:48 pm Now I know this will be controversial and not pretending, or would either suggest, that my method is right but what do people think they gain from training?
As I have already posted in another topic you can see I’m not one for training much. For me training is just about them leaving the basket and heading for home. The distance between liberation and home is irrelevant. I think better to have a short toss with no issues than a longer toss where the birds get split by a hawk and spread in all directions.
I want birds that can think for themselves and sort themselves out, not ones trained with others from the same loft that come back in big batches with most not learning a thing. I don’t race enough pigeons for that anyway.
If I was corridor racing it might be a bit different. But I have no line of flight really in the 3Cs. If there is a bit of North in the wind and with a large number of birds heading down into Devon and Cornwall they can fly along the south coast 35 miles South of me. Another week with South in the wind they could be more inland.
Just my thoughts though.

I get where you coming from Andy and you answer on the other post made sense when I suspected your early races must be short.
I never had a problem getting my young birds to range. They were never basket trained. First time in the basket they went 8 miles, 10 miles, then 20. Then they would get up to 20 tosses between 20 to 35 miles.
I started training very early than others in my club some 7 weeks before the first race. Taking them every 3 days. This way they still went ranging on the days they didn't train. As distance racing was my aim getting them trapping wasn't that important. I'd get the wife to look out for them when returning from training as they often returned only to go off ranging again. This worked for me as I could count on one hand the birds I lost training in the last five years I was racing. Many in my club loved the short early races and the Fed often had 4 under 70 miles. When this happened I just waited and sent them when the club reached 117 miles.

king wrote: Thu Aug 06, 2026 12:37 am

Andy wrote: Wed Aug 05, 2026 9:48 pm Now I know this will be controversial and not pretending, or would either suggest, that my method is right but what do people think they gain from training?
As I have already posted in another topic you can see I’m not one for training much. For me training is just about them leaving the basket and heading for home. The distance between liberation and home is irrelevant. I think better to have a short toss with no issues than a longer toss where the birds get split by a hawk and spread in all directions.
I want birds that can think for themselves and sort themselves out, not ones trained with others from the same loft that come back in big batches with most not learning a thing. I don’t race enough pigeons for that anyway.
If I was corridor racing it might be a bit different. But I have no line of flight really in the 3Cs. If there is a bit of North in the wind and with a large number of birds heading down into Devon and Cornwall they can fly along the south coast 35 miles South of me. Another week with South in the wind they could be more inland.
Just my thoughts though.

I get where you coming from Andy and you answer on the other post made sense when I suspected your early races must be short.
I never had a problem getting my young birds to range. They were never basket trained. First time in the basket they went 8 miles, 10 miles, then 20. Then they would get up to 20 tosses between 20 to 35 miles.
I started training very early than others in my club some 7 weeks before the first race. Taking them every 3 days. This way they still went ranging on the days they didn't train. As distance racing was my aim getting them trapping wasn't that important. I'd get the wife to look out for them when returning from training as they often returned only to go off ranging again. This worked for me as I could count on one hand the birds I lost training in the last five years I was racing. Many in my club loved the short early races and the Fed often had 4 under 70 miles. When this happened I just waited and sent them when the club reached 117 miles.

Thanks King. I wish our first races were further. When I move hopefully they will be, 34 miles is too short. But good experience for them when in among 700 to 1,000 birds. The most will invariably get taken over after such a short distance, they would only be in the air for around 45 minutes and still in big groups. It’s only those that happen to come on a line, or in a group that are flying a line nearer to home that are going to be the first to drop. I had my first 3 together last week but they came back from the West.
I do prefer the sprint races, really between 100 & 200 miles, as I have no interest in getting involved with having the vet visit and getting involved with DEFRA. The furthest we can go East to West for me is Ramsgate, 168 miles. At least from the short races I’ll have a good idea of when to expect them and can go out into our garden behind the shop where the pigeons are and see the first ones back. After that I have to rely on the ETS to tell me when others are home.

The other question with training is, are we discussing "training", or ":education"?

Because of my background I am quite good at getting them set up to go on day one.
Others are looking at the future, young bird racing is simply to prepare them for next year.

Many years ago an old racehorse trainer said to me, they are like a torch. You can only turn them off and on so many times before the battery goes flat.
I absolutely agree. Pigeons only have so many races in them before they go missing, get taken by a hawk or are simply replaced.

So, with that in mind, and planning on racing two weeks from this Saturday, I took the 8 cocks, 5 yearlings and the 3 late breds out again today. But I just turned the screw up a notch.
The good youngster, Frightening, I took his hen away before we went, he had half an hour in his box with his babies. When he got back he mucked about until he went in. THEN I put his hen back in.
The other two, his brother and the one off the Billionbaby, I gave them a fly and let them trap in the hen's side this morning.
It was only an average toss, 26 kilometres in 22 minutes. But the trapping,

They've got a bit of improvement, they need to be going quicker than that, but it's been a fast improvement. Another couple of weeks

Good to see going well Murray

In any sport, you will also have training. Keeping the body in condition, and checking different levels of fitness. So how do we know the birds are at racing fit?

Andy wrote: Wed Aug 05, 2026 9:48 pm Now I know this will be controversial and not pretending, or would either suggest, that my method is right but what do people think they gain from training?
As I have already posted in another topic you can see I’m not one for training much. For me training is just about them leaving the basket and heading for home. The distance between liberation and home is irrelevant. I think better to have a short toss with no issues than a longer toss where the birds get split by a hawk and spread in all directions.
I want birds that can think for themselves and sort themselves out, not ones trained with others from the same loft that come back in big batches with most not learning a thing. I don’t race enough pigeons for that anyway.
If I was corridor racing it might be a bit different. But I have no line of flight really in the 3Cs. If there is a bit of North in the wind and with a large number of birds heading down into Devon and Cornwall they can fly along the south coast 35 miles South of me. Another week with South in the wind they could be more inland.
Just my thoughts though.

Wouldn't say controversial just each their own.

Our first race each season is supposed to be 95-100 miles
Sending the birds on that distance with 0 knowledge and training for that route is self destruction..
But in germany these things are handeled differently anyways. EVERY fed in germany undergoes 2-6 training races with the whole fed before the first actual race mostly going up to 40-70 miles~

But we also reduced our training. 3-4 years ago we would train our yb's 35-40x before the first race. But alot of those trainings were from the same distance.
We now train less but more thoughtful. Only toss from the same distance/place 2-3x Until they get home at a decent pace. Then move further. Basically cut our training in half with what seems about the same effect.
How you train is probaly more important then how many times you train !

But with that beeing said. I understand your approach and i know 2-4 people in our fed with the same approach. But it just doesn't work out over here. Starting distances are to big. And i can tell you that the fanciers in our fed that i know that don't train usually loose about 35-40% of their squad on the first race. And they only start doing okay ish performance wise after 2-3 races when their birds get into the flow if even...

I think we underestimate the intelligence of our birds if we think that we can teach them the way home by training and it’s not about fitness as this is achieved around home.
Looking at some of the recent tracker’s results that have been posted on the internet it is quite surprising how off route the birds sometimes go. Even good birds. What you can’t see from the information posted but you hear about from the owners who get live feed is how often birds go down, sometimes for hours at a time, even from short races, before returning home. What the cause is who knows.
In another instance I picked up a stray pigeon from a non fanciers garden in town earlier in the year. I reported it through the RPRA. Never heard anything from the owner who lived in London. After 3 weeks of being sat in my loft I tossed it up at our club headquarters, 20 miles from me. The next day the chap phoned me again to say it was back in his garden. So I picked it up again. That week I stuck on our transporter to be let go with the race birds. This race was 34 miles to me. I had mine around 9am. At 9.30 the chap phoned to tell me the pigeon was back on his house. Once again I picked the bird up and after another week of it just being sat in my loft I sent it again as a trainer to our race at 118 miles. The following morning it was back with the non fancier. Apart from the couple of tosses it had from the race points it hadn’t actually flown out for about 5 weeks. This pigeon is now happy with the chap living in a rabbit hutch but flying out every day, he just shuts him in at night. The funny thing is the chap lives less than a 100 yards from me but the pigeon never goes in with mine.

Spieker-Loft wrote: Thu Aug 06, 2026 11:16 am

Andy wrote: Wed Aug 05, 2026 9:48 pm Now I know this will be controversial and not pretending, or would either suggest, that my method is right but what do people think they gain from training?
As I have already posted in another topic you can see I’m not one for training much. For me training is just about them leaving the basket and heading for home. The distance between liberation and home is irrelevant. I think better to have a short toss with no issues than a longer toss where the birds get split by a hawk and spread in all directions.
I want birds that can think for themselves and sort themselves out, not ones trained with others from the same loft that come back in big batches with most not learning a thing. I don’t race enough pigeons for that anyway.
If I was corridor racing it might be a bit different. But I have no line of flight really in the 3Cs. If there is a bit of North in the wind and with a large number of birds heading down into Devon and Cornwall they can fly along the south coast 35 miles South of me. Another week with South in the wind they could be more inland.
Just my thoughts though.

Wouldn't say controversial just each their own.

Our first race each season is supposed to be 95-100 miles
Sending the birds on that distance with 0 knowledge and training for that route is self destruction..
But in germany these things are handeled differently anyways. EVERY fed in germany undergoes 2-6 training races with the whole fed before the first actual race mostly going up to 40-70 miles~

But we also reduced our training. 3-4 years ago we would train our yb's 35-40x before the first race. But alot of those trainings were from the same distance.
We now train less but more thoughtful. Only toss from the same distance/place 2-3x Until they get home at a decent pace. Then move further. Basically cut our training in half with what seems about the same effect.
How you train is probaly more important then how many times you train !

But with that beeing said. I understand your approach and i know 2-4 people in our fed with the same approach. But it just doesn't work out over here. Starting distances are to big. And i can tell you that the fanciers in our fed that i know that don't train usually loose about 35-40% of their squad on the first race. And they only start doing okay ish performance wise after 2-3 races when their birds get into the flow if even...

You say that fanciers around you Leon that don’t train loose about 35-40% in the first race I would doubt that they lose many more after that and the birds lost would probably have gone down at some point anyway. But I understand what you’re saying.
For me these 34 mile races aren’t much different than club trainers anyway.