On your mark, get set, race!
You might hear that term in horse racing, but the competition 3NEWS learned about on Monday involved pigeons. The Beeville Racing Pigeon Club is made of experienced racers across the Coastal Bend. Francis Garrigues, a pigeon racer for 44 years, said the races can vary.
"Eight and eight thirty, thirty minutes in between. We load them in a trailer, specially made for that with baskets. Each bird is entered in the race with its band."
The bands placed on each bird not only have a race number to track their identity but also a tracker updating their exact whereabouts every three minutes.
"In most cases they go in a straight line, sometimes they turn, sometimes they stop. New technology allows us to know more about them but still....I think it's a miracle we let them go three hundred miles away and they will come back," he said.
3NEWS also spoke with another club member, Mike Esparza, who explained the lightning speed at which these birds fly, adding even more excitement to the event.
"They usually fly between forty to forty-five miles an hour. I had one bird fly about fifty-one. I calculated the miles, the distance, and the time and it gives you how many rpms. That was the fastest I've ever had, fifty one miles per hour."
As these racers continue tallying the winner of the last race of the season, they will start training the next generation of flyers. Those birds will take flight in the spring of 2024.
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