WAYS TO KEEP YOUR MONEY IN YOR POCKET
The trend is to keep changing pigeons, systems and types of food and supplements. Wise to stick with your own birds, work at them, cutivate them and perfect your management and knowledge of breeding and racing to make you more competitive. A champion can come from YOUR loft. Over the years I have sourced many champion bred birds as gifts to me, as exchanges or as deals. The purist essence of the sport is NOT the pursuit of money perse: it should be the teaching of specialist knowledge,sportsmanship and good will. On moral/ethical grounds pigeon racing is in dire need of these values and standards. A few genuine hobbyists survive and frequent the distance and marathon echelons of racing. By all means sell a few birds of quality breeding to enhance your name,yet hyped commercialism is a minefield. Afew good birds of mixed origins will prove themselves in racing and breeding and add to the collective gene pool.
Jim Emerton.
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ALL IN THE MIND!
Without a good racing brain, you will never get to the top or know greatness. All the top boys are competitive, tenacious, intelligent and tough. The marathon masters are blessed with patience, perseverance and persistence eg Vince Padfield and Jim Donaldson. Focus is maintained until objectives, goals and aspirations are realised in the form of results. Without the psyche, the best bred pigeons in the world will leave you off the top. I like the eccentric, oddball loner with a touch of mad/genius who goes his own way and produces a recognisable champion. The psychological/scientific/intuitive approach to the game can be effective in the long term. Wise to study the mind of the ace as well as the champion in his hand!
Jim Emerton
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FLYING AGAINST THE WIND INTO THE FAR WEST.
The prevailing wind in England is South West. Compared with the East our terminal velocities are often much lower, and I suspect many added miles of actual flying from Barcelona Int. I take any wind direction on the chin and prefer head winds for racing and conditioning up to around 550 miles on the day against the wind. Velocities can be minimal in Devon and Cornwall, where International competition is rare. There is an idea to centralise the BICC National racepoints to increase possible membership and race participation. Makes no difference to me as we plug way irrespective of the race point or wind direction, the essence being time on the wing for conditioning in future races, whether our birds are first or last. We managed 5 from Barce this year, so they have some ability. I do not believe that the race will be won ever in the UK.
Jim Emerton.
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THE TEACHER/STUDENT RELATIONSHIP IN PIGEON RACING
Over the years I have concentrated on teaching and mentoring a number of long distance/marathon aspirants with some success. Ones that do well are those who listen, learn and apply in practice my experiences and knowledge gained from racing related pigeons from 71 to 879 miles. In reality, it has been an interesting and stimulating experiment. The person who has exceded my wildest expectations is Nick Harvey of Taunton. After 8 years we have bred and raced 2 great Barcelona hens from my strain of related birds 71 to 879 miles. The key to success is the mindset and system adopted by the mentee-perfect it and results will follow, as we have supplied them with top/proven bloodlines. The main reason for success is always in the head-brain/mind synthesis of the fancier not the quality of the pigeons.
Jim Emerton.
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