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RACE REPORT HOTSPOT 4

Hotspot 4 was held from Turk Mine Road on Sunday 4th July from 374 km. The race was difficult although the winds were not high. There was some headwind from about halfway home. The day time temperatures have been hotter than normal for this time of the year but are not excessive. Our tracking information has a similar pattern to Hotspot 3 where the leading pigeons did not stop but went through to the loft from liberation. The pigeons were sent in super health and the returned birds look well.

The losses were high for most fanciers but there are exceptions. We have not analysed the results fully but have seen that one fancier sent 25 pigeons with 21 returning on the day and one on day 2 in race time. That fancier now has 23 birds back. This is an outstanding performance given the difficult conditions. We have other fanciers with good returns with some at 100%. Nevertheless, it is not nice to lose birds that we have cared for and trained for a year. This will always disappoint us even though it is inevitable in the difficult conditions that the pigeons have to face when competing at Victoria Falls.

We have approximately 2 weeks for pigeons to recover before Hotspot 5 which could very well be another difficult race. It is unlikely that the leading pigeons can reach the loft without stopping to drink at least once during the flight. The flight path follows two major river lines on the East of the main road running from Victoria Falls to Bulawayo which the birds that fly straight will cross in a few places. To the West there is the Hwange National Park wildlife reserve. This is 14 651 square kms (5 656 square miles) in extent. There are numerous pans with water where wild animals drink and these are dispersed throughout the park.

Hans-Paul Esser clocked the first pigeon at 11.17 am at a speed of 1449 m/m winning the hotspot and US$ 6000. There were 115 pigeons clocked in 10 minutes, 417 pigeons in the first 20 minutes and 1033 in an hour. We sent 2918 pigeons to the race and 1807 returned in race time. 38% of the birds did not return before the clock was stopped.

We managed to download information from 19 of the 25 trackers sent. 13 returned on the first day, 9 of which did not stop and 4 stopped to drink on the way. 6 returned on the second day and 6 are missing. We will download any information on any late trackers when they return. The highest altitude attained during the race was 1923 meters or 6309 feet above ground level.

Please watch this video  https://youtu.be/Y-ec4LKNlRw  to see some very interesting information downloaded from one of the trackers which flew in almost total darkness for 5 hours during the night.

The Super Ace competition with its prize pot of USD 600 000 is still very much in contention with 715 pigeons still in the running. Hardy Krueger is currently leading the Super Ace with his pigeon Kioto with others hot on his heals.

All the competition results are live on the website (under the Results dropdown). Here are the current standings;

Super Ace:  https://www.victoriafallswcpr.com/results.php?opt=9

Team Competition: https://www.victoriafallswcpr.com/results.php?opt=7

Grand Averages:  https://www.victoriafallswcpr.com/results.php?opt=4

Birds still in Knock Out:  https://www.victoriafallswcpr.com/results.php?opt=8

Club Competition:  https://www.victoriafallswcpr.com/results.php?opt=6

Congratulations to the prize money winners for Hotspot 4!

Best Regards,

The Victoria Falls Team