Barcelona international

[Murray]

I read a quote from an old trainer here in in Australia.
"Its a funny game, training stayers. You take them steady, don't rush them, let them mature over several years, then find out they are no good."

[Andy]

Yep, if you have the means, you can get there a lot quicker.
It's like Sydney trainer Gai Waterhouse who won the Melbourne Cup a few years ago with a horse called Fiorente. They went to England and paid a million for him. Saved having to sift through dozens or hundreds of horses looking for the right one.

Where’s the sense of achievement in that? Getting success from someone else’s work. But I suppose that’s the difference for me. I don’t see myself as a trainer. I am a stockman and get far more out of breeding my own success, even if it takes a bit longer.
When I was farming in Cornwall we wanted to be the best in the country. We brought in some top cows and yes it helped to get us to one of the best in a short space of time, but we had an open cheque book to buy stock. We did also show cows and although we had some great cows that we had brought in we made the decision that we would only show home bred cattle. We wanted to showcase our own breeding and name and not that of someone else!!

[Murray]

I sort of agree with you, Andy.
I agree that the 'cheque book' approach to stocking the loft is not my way of doing it either, but I am in the fortunate situation of being able to upgrade my family with some young birds bred off the very best and latest speed pigeons, and distance pigeons bred from Fed winners. The mother of the red Thone' brothers was a multiple Fed winner.
The blue Thone's are bred straight down from International and National winners.
I guess I could say, "No, I will keep chipping away with my old pigeons".
But I don't think I will.

[killer]

A good stock man must always be on the look out for better stock to improve his own ,Bette r if you have a line bred family to mate them with ,

[Andy]

A good stock man must always be on the look out for better stock to improve his own ,Bette r if you have a line bred family to mate them with ,

I do agree to a point Killer. With the cows of course we only really had the female line as all the replacements bred were through AI. I did have a couple of bulls that I bred through embryo transfer. We literally got catalogues each year from the AI companies showing what bulls they have semen from. We would then select which bulls we wanted to use on which cows. Usually using around 6 different bulls a year.

[Andy]

30 birds now home. 6 more yesterday and a further 4 today. John & Dave Staddon have won the west section clocking the only bird back over this side of the country clocking at 8.40am this morning, day 5. It shows how hard Barcelona is to get birds from. They fly about the same distance as me, 699 miles.

[Buster121]

30 birds now home. 6 more yesterday and a further 4 today. John & Dave Staddon have won the west section clocking the only bird back over this side of the country clocking at 8.40am this morning, day 5. It shows how hard Barcelona is to get birds from. They fly about the same distance as me, 699 miles.

Well done to Dave and all other timers, birds have had it rough with this heat

[killer]

Andy of the 17000 odd sent how many home, also how many did not clock ,

[Murray]

All of this sort of proves one thing.
To fly From Barcelona into the UK requires a different type of pigeon. Pigeons that will persevere for days on end. Not the ordinary sort of long distance pigeon.
To win from Barcelona seems to require another sort of pigeon again. Those with the right genetics to fly 700 miles and a long water crossing.
Super pigeons indeed.

[killer]

The way they get measured doesn’t help either .