The Special Ist

 

 

THE SPECIALIST

Best to concentrate on different, certain disciplines of racing to suit your racing/ego needs. I recommend a good foundation learning curve at all distances for basic experience of variable race conditions and people encountered on the way up, to give you an insight into birds and management and as a confidence booster. A versatile family of birds will result over years of effort and all will be different individuals. I started off as a YB flier and went from there and now we value races over 700 miles and I prefer tests of over 800 miles ,as the final arbiter of speed/endurance and difficulty. There are some converts to this philosophy, yet most gravitate around the 500 miles mark as a maximum, especially with the popular continental origin birds on speed motivation regimes for a quick fix. The marathon specialist must endure days of patient and perhaps anxious waiting to realise his dream-all makes for a fascinating sport overall.

 

Jim Emerton

 

 

PERSONALITY AND TEMPERAMENT

The top people in the sport have got where they are because of personality and temperament. They develop the right racing/breeding system with the right pigeons and make wise and intelligent decisions for the good of themselves and the sport. For distance and marathon racing, I like people to demonstrate a nice, calm relaxed and patient personality with an eye on detail and the big picture like Jim Wright who was 2nd open Pau NFC at 734 miles and the iconic Brian Denney who is a great killer of time till the arrival of his birds. Sprint to middle distance fanciers tend to like to win and dominate race after race-this takes some keeping up. Each bird is an individual with peculiar psychological traits and I like birds that are outstanding characters and quiet hens and cocks that dose and sleep in the transporters; the really fast sprinters look as though they are on fire. If a bird be blessed with a mind then instinct and drive to home come into the equation. People like Mark Gilbert and the Coopers have a great desire to make a mark and Jim Jenner is a creative genius. The global sport accepts all shades of humanity.

 

Jim Emerton

 

 

 

INSTINCT AND ACUMEN

I came alive on the edge of survival in the wilderness and faced with great difficulties in Afghanistan and an area of tribal law in Pakistan, as part of my worldly adventures. It was both thrilling and frightening to the core and the stimuli yielded great insight that serves you well. The instinctual side of the self, similar to intuition gives an instant perception of what you should take notice of. If clear thinking follows then you may survive the threat or dangerous situation you face. With pigeons try and align your instincts with each individual bird and the colony, to gain a perception and instinctive understanding of the birds potential, personality and some degree of predictability in type of anticipated performance at race points, particularly over distance and marathon events. The thinking man can ponder a method, a plan yet sharp perception is instant.

 

Jim Emerton