The Race

Diaz One Loft Race 3, the Third Race Qumbu, sent 915 pigeons from 131 fanciers into the air on a 352km liberation that organisers warned would be a toughy before a single basket was opened.

Liberation & Race Conditions

Birds left Qumbu at 07:30 under clearing skies and a cold 9°C to 13°C, with a light 9 to 11 km/h WNW breeze giving a helpful tailwind out of the gate, kinder than the toughy organisers had forecast.

Through the interior-to-coastal transition, skies stayed clear and temperatures climbed to 16°C to 19°C, with the breeze holding west to northwest at 10 to 15 km/h to keep the field moving.

Conditions held firm into Bushmans River Mouth, with sunny skies, 23°C to 25°C, and a steady 15 to 19 km/h WNW to west breeze giving a stable cross-tailwind as the first birds trapped from around 12:07pm.

Top 10 Arrivals

The race went right down to the wire. 'Blue Dragon', racing for Pigeon & Duifie, clocked 1269.41 m/min to take the win, with the margin over second just a fraction of a second on the clock. 'Rav 344306' for Camelot Hokke and 'Suitable' for Bontebok completed the podium close behind.

The top ten read like a photo finish from there. Webster Lofts placed fourth with 'Bet On Me', ahead of Team Judels and 'Blackcat' in fifth. Bruce Lord took sixth with 'Eleventwonine', Banie Deetlefs seventh with 'Peace Of Mind', and Marnes Nel filled both eighth and tenth with 'Breakaway' and 'Triumph', sandwiching Bontebok's second placer 'Low Risk' in ninth. Across the full top ten, less than two seconds separated the fastest pigeon from the tenth.

The Stats - Velocity News Fancier of the Race

This ranking is calculated only for fanciers who basketed three or more pigeons. Of the 131 fanciers in the race, 91 meet that minimum and make up the pool competing for the title.

Velocity News Fancier of the Race is a ranking based on a fancier's efficiency rate. What we mean by that is we look at all the pigeons a fancier had participating in a race, and calculate the percentage of that fancier's pigeons that managed to achieve a position within the top 5% of the race. That gives us a simple mathematical calculation: the number of pigeons inside the top 5% divided by the number of pigeons basketed. That produces a percentage, and that percentage is what we use to create the ranking. It reads simply, for example, that 29% of a fancier's pigeons placed within the top 5% of the race. That is the fancier efficiency we are talking about.

Where two fanciers tie on efficiency rate, the placing goes to whoever's qualifying pigeons flew the higher average velocity.

Ranking - Velocity News Fancier of the Race

The 10 Most Efficient Fanciers of the Day

1st Team Judels 4 pigeons, 2 inside the top 45 (5th, 22nd) - 50.00%

2nd PH/H&F 9 pigeons, 4 inside the top 45 (11th, 26th, 31st, 40th) - 44.44%

3rd Kruger & Sons 3 pigeons, 1 inside the top 45 (27th) - 33.33%

4th Billy Kruger 4 pigeons, 1 inside the top 45 (14th) - 25.00%

5th Anderson Racing Team 4 pigeons, 1 inside the top 45 (20th) - 25.00%

6th Bruce Lord 10 pigeons, 2 inside the top 45 (6th, 42nd) - 20.00%

7th Hardy Kruger & Oberholster Loft (DE) 16 pigeons, 3 inside the top 45 (16th, 17th, 35th) - 18.75%

8th Fourie & Olivier 6 pigeons, 1 inside the top 45 (24th) - 16.67%

9th Riaan Strydom 6 pigeons, 1 inside the top 45 (34th) - 16.67%

10th Marnes Nel 27 pigeons, 4 inside the top 45 (8th, 10th, 18th, 41st) - 14.81%

Team Judels takes Velocity News Fancier of the Race. They placed 50% of their pigeons within the top 5% of the race, a return that no other fancier in the race came close to matching once the three-pigeon minimum was applied.

For sheer depth at the front, Bontebok placed more pigeons inside the top 45 than anyone else in the race, five in total, ahead of Webster Lofts, Marnes Nel and PH/H&F on four apiece.

*Please Note: The table below can scroll horizontally from left to right.*

Looking Ahead

Pigeon & Duifie, Camelot Hokke and Bontebok all showed serious form at the front of this one, while Team Judels, PH/H&F and Kruger & Sons backed it up with strong efficiency numbers of their own? Whether that form holds as the Diaz One Loft series goes deeper into the season is the question now facing all of them, and Velocity News will be watching to see how the story unfolds.