I am one of the few that have raced in east and now in west , the brother also used to fly in Peebles but now flys in east where we originate , I am only building for the 500 ml races and am no where near the level of a lot of men through here at the distance , I t is without doubt a harder tougher terrain to race to , but part of me agree's that the great doos of years ago are,nt around in the west , when I started racing 40 years ago the west side always held there own in these races , not so much now but I put a lot of that down to the race programme and inland nats, our fed programme is geared for sprint racing this year which is no help to anyone that wishes to race the channel ! Years ago they had their own channel races but there is no interest now . I have only sent to a few nationals since I came thru here and done ok in the inland nats but can't get my head around no matter where I train my birds from be it East Lothian or down Crawford/ Peebles way we in the west sect are 1 hour behind the east section ! Our west doo,s are not that bad and in my case are the same birds thet scored well in the east sect or were in the frame . I am not a top pigeon man and possibly never will be but there is more to this than bad fanciers or bad birds . Just my opinion .