Riverpark birds make comeback in flight from Bloemfontein

ON Saturday Gauteng Pigeon Union liberated the pigeons from Bloemfontein in the second last short distance race for the 2017 season.

This was also a combined liberation with other pigeon unions/federations and it was the GPU’s Sprint Special Race for the open birds.

After the quick returns from the toss (training race) from Kroonstad in the morning, a lot of Riverpark Pigeon Club members expected the race from Bloemfontein to be quick but this was not the case.

The young birds had a nett flying time of five hours seven minutes and 28 seconds, which was 15 minutes longer than the first Bloemfontein race. The old birds’ nett flying time was 20 minutes longer.

Riverpark had 14 members flying 203 birds in the young bird race and 15 members flying 228 birds in the open race. When the birds were liberated there was a light north easterly wind and it was partly cloudy. On the way back to Kempton Park the birds had southerly, westerly and northerly winds to contend with, which made for another tough race for the pigeons.

The young birds took 15 minutes and four seconds to fill the top 30 positions and the old birds only 11 minutes and four seconds.

This week’s results saw a couple of members who have been off the top 30 positions come back again on both the old and young bird results. With the young birds’ results, Fred van Rensburg won by a margin of one minute 44 seconds from Le Roux Lofts (Pieter le Roux), and Tallies Lofts (Jan Taljaard) won the open race by two minutes 46 seconds from Blackie Swart.

Young birds: Fred van Rensburg 1st, 17th; Le Roux Lofts (Pieter le Roux) 2nd, 18th, 21st, 22nd, 29th, 30th; Bakgat Lofts (Danalien Snyman) 3rd, 23rd; Tallies Lofts (Jan Taljaard) 4th, 15th, 26th; Blackie Swart 5th, 6th, 13th, 16th, 25th; G & E Lofts (Graham Cheary & Elaine Russell) 7th; Doves Nest Guest House (Gawie Botha) 8th, 10th, 19th; Pieter van den Broeck 9th; Flip van Staden 11th, 12th, 27th; Sky Lofts (Corrie Moller) 14th, 20th, 24th and Albert Neilson in 28th position.

Open birds: Tallies Lofts (Jan Taljaard) 1st, 9th, 26th; Blackie Swart 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 23rd; Beano Daschner 5th, 8th, 10th, 12th; Doves Nest Guest House (Gawie Botha) 6th, 11th, 28th, 29th; Flip van Staden 7th, 18th, 25th; Knoesen Lofts (Attie Knoesen) 13th; Le Roux Lofts 14th; Pieter van den Broeck 15th; Reinhold Brichta 16th, 22nd; Pine Pienaar 17th, 27th; Sky Lofts (Corrie Moller) 19th, 20th, 21st; G & E Lofts (Graham Cheary & Elaine Russell) 24th and Henry Mostert 30th.

On Saturday the birds will be liberated from Reddersburg in the Free State and this will be the last short distance race for the 2017 season.

Reddersburg is about 435km for Riverpark members.