The thing is about the sport.

[MIL]

My birds don't circle in training so why should they on a Saturday?

Whenever my birds went in the basket to them its a race. They don't know they're only "training"

Ha Mike so you assuming they do the same as training? and you really don't actually know what they do when racing.

The result sheet tells me what I need to know

In my day there wasn't tracking but Gary and Niall Gordon track their birds with great effect

[king]

You do get crap races like that Andy we had one this year a lad who hadn’t won a club card all year won the fed
We don’t really know why it happened we suspected peregrines at the site scaring the ybs but we don’t really know

I've watch countless libs around York. York/Wetherby/Selby(Bubwith) on both good and bad days and I've never seen the birds leave the transport and head straight for home. So the good & bad birds have left the site together. Now everybody will agree that between the lib point and home end the good birds get to the front.

[king]

My birds don't circle in training so why should they on a Saturday?

Whenever my birds went in the basket to them its a race. They don't know they're only "training"

Ha Mike so you assuming they do the same as training? and you really don't actually know what they do when racing.

The result sheet tells me what I need to know

In my day there wasn't tracking but Gary and Niall Gordon track their birds with great effect

How do you explain when you are beaten Mike? (It must have happened) If you are correct and your birds don't circle at the race point and head straight for home, how do they get overtaken?

[MIL]

That's easy enough King because on the day they (and I) weren't good enough

[NeilA]

You do get crap races like that Andy we had one this year a lad who hadn’t won a club card all year won the fed
We don’t really know why it happened we suspected peregrines at the site scaring the ybs but we don’t really know

I've watch countless libs around York. York/Wetherby/Selby(Bubwith) on both good and bad days and I've never seen the birds leave the transport and head straight for home. So the good & bad birds have left the site together. Now everybody will agree that between the lib point and home end the good birds get to the front.

I use to go to North Weald ( Epping) amd then Wansted flats as a teenager seen 35,000 go to unc they do break in groups king but I’m happy to have different views to each other on this king

[MIL]

.

[king]

That's easy enough King because on the day they (and I) weren't good enough

Maybe if they stayed with the others Mike they could have used them as pacemakers?. On a different subject. Do Gordon Bros ever get beaten?

[MIL]

Of course Gary and Niall get beaten. They're human and birds are not machines

All they ever set out to do each week is for their birds to give the best account of themselves that they can (they only race 6-7 YB races a year)

No fancier wins every week (certainly not at Fed/Open level anyway) - not if the competition is decent

[Mark69]

Very interesting subject

[Andy]

Just looked at the first OB race of the BICC from Guernsey last year. There were 166 members sending 1865 birds. Liberated in a strong SSW wind. I admit that racing at this level of competition is very different from club and fed racing. So you would think that the birds would be close together. Mr&Mrs Shaw of Crewe sent 21 and were 1st, 3rd and 4th open with velocities of 2170,2129 & 2093ypm. There was 8 minutes between his 1st & 3rd bird flying 246 miles. The bird in 7th open was only flying 87 miles with a velocity of 2078ypm. Where were all the birds in between? Only the first 294 birds in the result were over 1500ypm.
Racing is a funny old game and a lot can’t be explained.