Hot spot 3 Winburg

With a week of planning and guessing about the weather we decided to drive down to Winburg on Friday late afternoon, Paul and Alfred booked in and were up at 04h30 so we could discuss the weather; we decided to wait till about 5am before we had a look at the weather again, towards the south there were heavy and dark clouds and I told them to not bother driving further to Verkeerdevlei but rather liberate in Winburg at 06h15, at 05h55 Paul sent a message and said the clouds are closing in and I told them to liberate at 06h00. The pigeons were released but we could immediately see that they are struggling to get direction due to the heavy cloud cover and north easterly wind blowing. As they drove out of town they did see the kit slowly heading towards Johannesburg.

At Ventersburg the clouds cleared a bit and they could see the sun breaking through, the wind was against the pigeons and we knew we were in for a tough day at the office. Headwinds with clouds all around meant the pigeons will have to work to make it home, perfect preparation for the final race.

Quite a number of guests gathered at the lofts and we began waiting for the pigeons to arrive, I got a bit worried at about 10h30 when by then no pigeons have arrived yet, at 10h42 3 pigeons appeared from over the mountain and dropped down onto the landing board, first to cross the Benzing finish line was a pigeon from Yusef Al-Muteri from Kuwait, the 2nd pigeon was of local youngsters Lamprecht en Stratus lofts who has had a great showing in the top of the results the last two weeks and the 3rd pigeon was another pigeon from Kuwait this time from Badar ALsanafi well done to these 3 fanciers who was all 3 equal winners on a very tough hot spot. A few minutes later the next kit arrived and they would arrive at a steady pace as the hours ticked by, the top 15 back from the hot spot were:

RankFancierCountryPigeon
1Yusef Al-MuteriKuwaitS440 KT 21 18703
2Lamprecht en StratusSouth AfricaS138 ZA OP 21 540
3Badar ALsanafiKuwaitS290 KT WATANYA 21 752926
4Fahad Al-HarbiKuwaitS435 KT 21 13354
5Zdenek PavlikCzech RepublicS403 DV 05927 21 817
6Alfons KlaasGermanyS369 DV 0507 21 403
7Hooymans PigeonsNetherlandsS259 NL 21 1301992
8Hooymans PigeonsNetherlandsS141 NL 21 1302269
9Ali AlmieaKuwaitS483 KT FED 21 1055566 **
10Badar ALsanafiKuwaitS289 KT WATANYA 21 752959
11PHSouth AfricaS035 ZA HHC 21 1081 **
12Team M & YSouth AfricaS451 KT 21 19491 **
13Koutsoudis BrothersSouth AfricaS226 ZA OP 21 8604
14Bela VistaSouth AfricaS321 ZA MIDL 21 13
15Peter Smith Kaasboer LoftsSouth AfricaS192 ZA MASK 21 1640 **

For the full results of hot spot 3 please click here

So after 3 hot spots leading the averages by a very narrow is Triple J Lofts to have a look at the averages please click here

We have just the final race left to be flown weather permitting from Springfontein (488km) on Friday 28 January 2022. The winner will get the guaranteed first prize of US$100 000 or R1 400 000. The ace pigeon after the final race will win US$10 000 or R140 000.

Prize money on the final race, as you all know the 1st prize of US$ 100 000 is guaranteed even though we only received 290 paid entries at an entrance fee of $500 which meant the kitty for prize money is only US$145 000 we will be paying out the following on the final race next week. It was the year to enter as Covid and quarantine restrictions meant we lost nearly 400 pigeons from the USA and Thailand that could not be shipped so your odds in this final race is excellent!.

US$

ZAR

Prize money

259000

3626000

1

100000

1400000

2

20000

280000

3

15000

210000

4

12500

175000

5

10000

140000

6

5000

70000

7

5000

70000

8

5000

70000

9

5000

70000

10

5000

70000

11

3000

42000

12

3000

42000

13

3000

42000

14

3000

42000

15

3000

42000

16 Free team for 2023 less admin of US$300

17 Free team for 2023 less admin of US$300

18 Free team for 2023 less admin of US$300