Pigeon Fever
Spring is here and hardened men are getting emotional and hyped up, as it is racing time. The baskets are ready and the brain cells fired with enthusiasm. I am containing mine for a steady buzz of the bumble bee for the rest of the season until October. There will be elements of hard-headed ruthlessness, fear, trepidation and a determination to prevail with racing birds. You are hooked into it when you race your own birds back to the loft. Fortunes and reputations will rise and fall, along with moods and emotions as the season gets into full swing. It is wise to have a long fuse, and to hope to be happy after enduring a long season. People will squabble and fight and wives put to flight in the cauldron of competitive racing. If you can endure it all over many years then it does yield a sort of perverse satisfaction. The top men are fanatics of the game and exhibit a do or die philosophy.
Race Day Excuses: We are in the grand season of ego-defence mechanisms. Rather than blame ourselves, everything outside of ourselves gets the punishment stick-it is extra punitive. There are some colourful examples why we failed to win again e.g. it flew round and round, it was only a yearling, a sparrow hawk flew over, the next door neighbour fired up a chainsaw and put the washing out, or it was feeding babies etc. My take on this is to get real, use a little self criticism and improve your system and racing prowess. It is part of club room culture and the personal face of pigeon racing. In the early days I used every excuse on earth and looked an idiot doing so.
Excitement over the Birds: It is easy to get a quick fix of excitement over advertised or new names of birds, traded as wonder pigeons. It is wise to be shrewd cold and calculating if money is involved. I confess to some new intros over recent times, all of which are tested in the stock loft. If the progeny time from Barcelona Int. at over 700 miles then we shall inculcate the lines into the base strain, since performance level is the new criterion, rather than inbreeding perse as an obsession. Whatever you pay, or whoever supplies the new birds, your management is the key to unleashing the sporting potential-you must create a winning system from your loft and surrounding environs. The wise old fox of a fancier reserves a real buzz for his top racer breeders, since this places the emphasis on real quality in the acid test of race reality.
Taking the Sport Forward:
If each person did one thing a year to benefit pigeon racing then such a positive contribution would impact the game. I am a great believer in the free exchange of birds bred direct off quality birds. Each club member could give one to help novice members of the club. Fanciers do seek publicity, yet there is a lot of good charity giving by people. The top named fanciers can contribute some silverware to racing organisations. Famous fanciers or people on committees can exercise good power-I like charismatic leaders for their influence. The corollary is that we share the common faults of humanity, yet the icons of the sport do inspire the competitive instincts of others with their results, which may result in character assassination. People are diverse and at least the sport encourages all types into the sporting side of it. The essence must be in the pleasure derived from a love of the birds themselves, and to race them at your favourite distances.
Fund Raising Efforts: My main enthusiasm is orientated around marathon strain building, yet folk need to raise money for prises and the running of organisations. Well hyped and promoted auction sales can be effective with donated birds, which raises the profile of birds and fanciers, and is good for social communication. These require leaders like Ghenty and Feeney to control and coordinate. How the money is utilised can become political yet the Blackpool Show features some good birds. Most of my network of pals identifies with the concept of generosity to varying degrees in practice, yet we all have an eye on ourselves in the final analysis. The whole sphere of the game is ego and personality led, although I favour good results rather than the true motivations behind them. Well cared for birds are expensive to keep, and I sold a good few to finance my global travels.
Cause for Celebration: After 64 years in constant love with pigeons, other birds and wildlife, I would like to give credit to some of the leading contemporary fanciers, who have stimulated great media attention. With a series of great results, we have the racing prowess and dominance of Mark Gilbert of Windsor. In Scotland a distance/marathon genius was born and named James Donaldson. At Peterhead we started to exchange birds in 98-a wonderful man with his own strain of birds founded in 80. Yorkshire hosts an intense rivalry between some luminous and illustrious giants of the distance game to Pau/Tarbes over 700 miles. We have the ultra competitive Chris Gordon, the galactic and seminal performances of Neil Bush of Amcotts, and the charismatic and totally dedicated Brian Denney. These singular individuals all strive to perfect the art and science and consummate skill of mastery of greater distances with their cultivated strains of proper racing pigeons. On a positive note the organisation of The BICC has made the club truly great, and its rise is inexorable as a premier force in INTERNATIONAL PIGEON RACING.
Jim Emerton
