midnight_son

IB don't give up on Tours if you have planned for it. This race was an aberration, nobody can judge their methods or their birds in that type of event so you might well have them spot on for 600 miles.

My dad got two this morning. Richard Combe, Elphinstone approx 0530 x 2 Well done all that got them, hopefully a few more arrive today and we can salvage something from this weekend.

Looks good for tomorrow at the moment. If the forecast is right then should get an early morning liberation, sun at the race point, broken cloud and sun over most of England with a cloudy but dry home end in the evening. Light west winds, 40-42mph for the winners with birds flying up to 600 miles on the night. Sounds good to me. See link below for weather in France. For those who can't speak the lingo - Vendredi is Friday ! http://france.meteofrance.com/france/accueil?xtor=AL-1

John Bosworth, Elphinstone 17 home out of 25, 14 in the clock between 2008 and roughly 2125. I believe all yearlings, great team flying.

John Bosworth, elphinstone has at least 3 between 2008 and 2030

Great result, very jealous of those fanciers in the middle of England and further south who have so many long distance opportunities and the international races offer a whole new dimension. The best we can do is a joint convoy with north of England organisations but would maybe be nice to have a combined result and see how our pigeons do against UNC or GYA when we are with them

Jade, you may be right with your 30% figure of yearlings. I racemarked a lot of 2007s and 2008s last night. However, that leaves 70% of the convoy as being experienced birds ready for the channel. Surely those 3 and 4YOs that are being sent to this race are the sort of birds that should be going to a Gold cup or Tours ? Granted, a percentage of them will be sprinters with no intention of flying the distance but surely if you're half a distance man you want your experienced birds for the water ? Maybe they're sending here thinking they'll be fine to go back to Ypres, Tours or Clermont but if its another hard race then thats another stack of prospective channel birds lost at an inland national. John Hood, I hear what you say about number of members but maybe more of the members would send to France if they had pigeons left to send to France rather than getting emptied out at the two inland races ? Remember they do come at the start of the season when everyone is fired up for the nationals and can't resist having a go. I accept there are a proportion of members who just don't want to fly the channel (the thin end of the wedge right enough allowing that first inland national back in 1996 - now we have members who don't want to fly 500 miles in a long distance club !) but there are definitely those who have every intention of trying the channel only to run out of pigeons or become discouraged by bad returns from inland nationals. Yes, the members choose to send, ultimately it is they who fill in the entry sheet but there is nothing wrong with the SNFC taking steps to rehabilitate the long distance races and protect the entries for the big races by effectively protecting fanciers from themselves regarding losses at inland nats. Best of luck for the weekend

You had me doubting myself there !!

Section A is Solway I think ? I think I've got you in with E and F - Lanarkshire and Ayrshire side.

An interesting debate and one which is imperative to the future of long distance racing in Scotland. I’ve been thinking about this quite a bit and I tend to agree with Gareth, that these races do more harm than good to the channel entries. I would also caution against the idea that a yearling inland national would be a good compromise as the yearlings are the very birds that we need to look after to get them to the stage of going to the channel. By “look after†I don’t mean protect them from going over 300 miles, on the contrary, I think it is very important they do get over 300 miles but I question whether a national race provides the best balance of education and protection. When I was a kid in the mid to late 80s and 90s all my dads good channel pigeons won from the Dorchester open as yearlings, that was the proving ground and if they did it from there they became big channel hopes the following season. So what is different between Dorchester of 15-20 years ago and the inland nationals of today ? I tend to think that quite simply national racing by its nature is harder. As soon as you mix up birds from North South East and West in one liberation the difficulty is ramped up. We never thought getting half home was a good race when it was fed only racing from the coast but its getting that way now with inland nationals. However, I don’t think it is as easy as saying we’ll just get rid of them. They’re here now and we have to manage the situation as its not as simple as it sounds. There are the added complications of the financial weakness of federations these days and the SNRPC hovering around as well. If the SNFC put an end to inland nationals just like that then what would happen ? Rightly or wrongly many feds have come to rely on the SNFC to organise their longest race. If that option is taken away then the SNRPC could step in to offer that service and pick up a lot of duplicate entries from federation flyers who have no strong affiliation to SNFC. In addition to that it would put a hole in the SNFC balance sheet unless channel entries went up significantly (probably not as our feds would still be going with SNRPC and we’d still be losing a stupid number of prospective channel candidates). I also note some over simplified comments about the birdage showing the huge appetite for inland nationals amongst members. This is a red herring in my view. I’ve sent loads of pigeons to inland nationals, many more than I’ve sent to channel nationals. Is that because I love inland nationals ? Not in the least. I send to them because I am obliged to enter and time in if I want to compete for the averages which I do as I believe to win the averages in your section should be the aim of all members. I am also obliged to send to the 2nd of them at least as my federation goes joint convoy and I have no other option for an over 300 mile race. Last year I was lucky enough to win the SNFC averages sending I think 12 to Bovingdon, 7 to Eastbourne, 2 to Reims, 6 to Ypres, 2 to Bourges and 4 to Clermont. Taking those at face value you could say that clearly my preference is for inland nationals as I sent more to those races. In fact the reverse is true, the inland races provide least fascination for me and the two most precious races to me were Reims and Bourges with a total of 4 entries and I think you’d find a similar pattern for all the long distance men. We all send to the inland nationals because for various reasons we do have to rather than because we want to. One point that has not been mentioned is the way that inland nationals race can alienate potential members of the national. Guys that have done well in the club forced to send to a national race if they want to win their club average or fed open race. Now, the hardened national men can maybe take it on the chin if they get a hard race and brush it off, come out swinging the following year but some of the guys who we may hope to attract to the national can be wiped out and they’ll never want to join the national for the distance races if all they have is bad experiences. It would be interesting to know just how many new members have graduated from inland races through to the 500 mile plus races, my perception is very few in my area, and no wonder, if they keep suffering blows at 300 to 400 miles they can never build a team to go for the channel. So, here is my solution which I think would be worth a try. I think we need to keep some kind of race in place (whether one or two I don’t really care) to provide experience for young pigeons coming up, to provide time on the wing for those who wish to enter channel pigeons and to prevent the loss of floating members to SNRPC. However, I would change from full scale inland nationals to two separate events, one for the west side of the country and one for the east. Say Section B, C, D and G in one and Sections A, E and F in the other. Section D would be the splitting point between East and West so they could arguably be in either side. Those members in those sections can decide which racepoints they want to use (not necessarily the same place for both groups) in conjunction with their feds. The SNFC can do all the organising and secretarial stuff as they currently do in return for taking whatever profit is achieved. The races are not full scale nationals and do not count towards averages. They are basically west and east amals organised by the SNFC. They would still be hugely prestigious to win but would hopefully provide a safer passage for the pigeons with them all heading in one general direction, although it must be accepted that there is never a guarantee of a good race, just moving the percentages more in our favour. Possible outcomes from this course of action:- 1. By removing these races from the averages, the national men trying to plan their entries across 4 channel races don’t have to worry about covering inland nationals with a strong entry so less risk of these races knocking birds out of the channel picture. 2. SNFC maintains a level of income from these races and facilitates feds getting down the road to a good distance, also maintaining the link between feds and SNFC to theoretically attract members who duplicate. Reduce the chance of SNRPC hovering up the federation members. 3. Try and provide a safer experience of 300 mile racing for yearlings thus converting a higher proportion into experienced 2 yr olds who can be confidently targeted at channel races. 4. Provide a better experience for club racers who are dipping their toe in national waters via these east and west amals. Hopefully they get better returns while still getting a taste of competing on a bigger stage.

Sounds about right Bobby thanks

What time is the race marking for the midweek race ? Edmonstone I assume ?

Thanks for the info Bobby

Is MNFC Tours on the 2nd July (same weekend as SNFC Ypres) or the 9th July ? I think there was a general acceptance at the AGM that having two nationals on the same weekend and race marking the two on the same night was far from ideal. I realise there are limited opportunities to joint convoy so perhaps it is unavoidable in this case. Personally I think it's preferable to have a race on the weekend of July 2nd and another race on 9th July where we have a blank weekend at the moment.

Would also be interesting to know what kind of race UNC got, are they falling in or scattered ?

My dad just got another one, full brother to his early bird. He's just away to the clocks so has now missed the arrival of both his pigeons - maybe he should stay away more often !

Very happy with her, she's hard as nails, not much of her but every ounce of her is trying. I've got her younger half sister going to Clermont so hope she's told her how to do it !

Timed my hen that was 2nd sect 8th open Andrezel at 1440, she's in great nick, down in body but overall delighted with her condition after 6 days out of the loft.

Unfortunately he had to go away to a meeting with work today so he missed the bird. Thanks to John Bosworth for timing it in, didn't lose much time at all.

My dad is in. Richard Combe, Elphinstone 11.39. A 3YO son of the hen that was 2nd open Tours in 2006.

Any idea about returns down there ? Unless there are a good 30 or 40 home by now we're going to be really struggling to get more than a handful home in SNFC in the next 3 or 4 hours.

I agree, would be interesting know the times from Bridlington and Scarborough area, they could be half an hour better off over there. 2139 would be a cracker up here, i'd be delighted with anything tonight.

According to this link Knareborough is 144 miles from me http://www.freemaptools.com/how-far-is-it-between.htm Even if they only manage 38mph for that last bit that still has them up here before 10pm assuming there is a bird from this area up with the leaders down there.

If the wind was like it is here the whole way then i'd say it'd be unlikely but as far as i can tell we're having much the worst of the wind so not surprised to hear Kelso was a struggle. We never bothered tossing our Clermont birds today because it was too windy. The forecast is it for it to drop this evening so lets hope it does. If I was living in Eye Valley I'd definitely be very hopeful but I don't think they have many birds away from down there. If they get to Eyemouth by 21.30 then they have another 60-70 minuts into the wind to get to Elphinstone so would be touch and go if they would scrape into us tonight, east side of Fife is not impossible tonight.

Those Limoges pigeons are doing 1520ypm roughly. Over 50mph anyway but the south west wind is more help to them than it would be to ours maybe trying to hold a straighter south to north route than east to west. Still, ours could do, say, 48mph to Calais if they run with the wind. If they then average 42mph from Calais up the east of england then they could in Yorkshire in under 12 hours. If that works out and they're in Yorkshire at 5.30 I'll be disappointed if there isn't a pigeon in Scotland tonight especially if this wind drops a bit.