Riverpark flies 279 birds in weekend race
The birds were released with clear skies and no wind
RIVERPARK Pigeon Club had 16 members flying 279 birds in the weekend race from Hanover, an average distance of 660km for club members.
This was Gauteng Pigeon Union’s annual derby race in which double teams of young birds are entered and points scored are allocated to the old bird scheme.
Unfortunate for Flip van Staden, he had to have his 20th and 28th positions in the club deleted before the club results were submitted to the union as he only flies in the young bird scheme.
The derby race was also the last official race for the young birds and the first long distance race for the season, although there are still two more middle distance races before the last race of the season on October 1.
The birds were released with clear skies and no wind, although the rest of the route saw the winds changing from south to east, to west-south-west and north-west. The winds in some places were 7m a second (25km/h) and club members had heard that there was rain in some areas of the Free State as well. The birds had a nett flying time of 8 hours 27 minutes and 10 seconds for this race.
The club’s Springfontein young bird winner from the previous week, Tallies Lofts (Jan Taljaard), took first and second places in the derby result sheet with three seconds between his first and second birds.
The rest of the official union results were:
Blackie Swart 3rd and 24th; Pieter van den Broeck 4th and 17th; Sky Lofts 5th, 7th, 26th and 27th; Doves Nest Guest House 6th, 13th, 14th, 15th, 22nd, 23rd and 29th; Hilton Pitout 8th and 28th; Pine Pienaar 9th and 16th; Holtzhausen Hokke 10th, 11th, 12th and 30th; G & E Lofts 18th and 25th; Fred van Rensburg 19th; Albert Neilson 20th and 21st.
Riverpark also had the second and final leg of their “hat draw” competition where members nominated three young birds a week before the first basketing night in June. In this race Pine Pienaar from Holtzhausen Hokke was the winner by 2 minutes 29 seconds, G & E Lofts came third and Sky Lofts were in fouth position.
On Saturday the race will be from Cradock, an average distance of 720km.
