JOHN GHENT'S
BACKYARD MARATHON CHALLENGE
Update - October 2013
Where does the time go? It is just over 12 months since I embarked on the Backyard Marathon Challenge so I thought it was about time that I brought you up to speed with where I am with it all.
This season was a bit of a practice season with the old birds, getting the system into my head that was given to me by Jim. I must say it worked better than I expected! I started the season with 11 old birds and after training down to 66 miles I was left with 7. I jumped them all quite a long way at various stages of the training regime and next year I will do things slightly differently but not much differently to be honest. The testing inland is very important as it is better to eliminate poor orienteering birds at 66 miles in my car or with the Fed at 100 miles than it is to pay £3.50 to send them all over the Channel to test them for the first time, that's OK if you only have 5 or 6 but sending 40 over isn't cheap! Anyway, of those 7 that I was left with, 6 of them came on the day from the training toss a week before BBC Carentan so I got brave and banged all 6 into the National for the first race of their lives. After a 1 day holdover I was waiting for pigeons of my own again, 16 years after the last time I had done it. The buzz I got just waiting was incredible, the National racing bug has bitten me hard and there is no looking back now, goodness knows what I will be like when I first send to an International! So after 5 hours and 43 minutes, when I was beginning to lose hope, velocities were down in the 1100's now, I looked up at the chimney and there he stood! A yearling red cock that was unpaired, he took a few minutes to trap but I didn't care. I had proved a lot of people wrong that day and I was over the moon. No racing at all and jumped straight in at 230 miles over the Channel! A couple of hours later another one dropped and low and behold, it was the first cock's nestmate, hopefully a sign of things to come from those two.
So that was the old bird season over for me, I did get a blue hen return under her own steam 3/4 days later and I am proud of her as well, to make it back after a few days out, but now it was time to concentrate on my young bird tribe! Again, under the guidance of Jim, the young birds were treated a whole lot differently to how I would have even thought about treating them in the past. They were on open hole all day, everyday, out with the old birds, and were learning all the time. When the time came to start training they had one toss at 2 miles, one at 6 miles, one at 15 miles, two at 30 miles, one at 45 miles-ish and then the final one was a scary one at 66 miles in the fog. 7 tosses in all and then into the first race at about 95 miles. I was pumped up and shouldn't have been really, this wasn't the goal but I was here again waiting for pigeons......well.........disaster! The guys round here were rattling them in! Gaz Marsh who flys about 50 yards to the East of me had them going over my house in droves and I was half an hour behind the winners in the club and the Fed, I was gutted, more so that everyone had about 100% returns and I had 9 out of 21! But...slowly and surely the others worked in until the final one came in the middle of the week, I dropped 2 in the end.
The following week I was at work on the Saturday, 10-2, and as our convoyer John doesn't usually go early, he likes to go between 9-12, there was little point in having a clock set. I sent 18 as trainers, the only one that didn't go was a dark cock that was the last one back from the week before, he came on the Wednesday 2 days before basketing for the second race. Turns out the race was a stinker, up at 12.00 and the winners were in at 2.10pm, it was about 95 miles again. The club had disastrous returns but the surprise was I didn't! This is when it really hit home to me that this system is about letting birds grow, develop and learn. Keep them well fed, educate them to orientate but don't expect to live with the sprint men over 1400 YPM, do however expect to get them when the going gets tough. This sort of resonated with me at Carentan but I thought it was beginners luck, a good bird perhaps, but now I knew this worked! I had 11 out the 18 on the day when quality fanciers had single figures out of 50 or more, something had happened but my birds were back. Over the next few days the ones that were missing in action steadily worked in until 10 days after liberation the last one dropped, 18/18 from a real stinker of a young bird race! That was me done for the season. With the wedding just around the corner I sat back and looked at the 40 thoroughbreds in my stable for 2014's assault on the National scene.
With Winter having hit us in Leicester with a sudden burst of cold and rain, all that is left to do now is survey the options for next year and make some decisions on what to do with the race team. As always I am sure the off season will fly by and April will once again be upon us, I am struggling to get my head around the fact that it is about 9 weeks until Christmas, I wonder how much pigeon related gear I can get onto my wish list, my 30th birthday was last week and the wife has banned me from spending any of my birthday money on corn, she'll come around though.
On the National front, I am delighted at the plotting that is going on from Taunton to Leicester, from Wales to Hull and most recently from Bolton to Lancaster, in the pursuit of Barcelona glory. Nic told me in the week that he has been contacted by someone in Lancaster to go after Barcelona glory, good luck to that fancier, whoever you may be!
John Ghent
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Elimar October 2013
