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- The
MDPR has 6 races from 151 km to 552
km for a total of 1800 km. The MDPR is flown over a 10 week
period. |
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The
TTS has races of 2 x 100, 2 x
200, 2 x 300, 1 x 370 and 2 x 450 for a total of 2500 km. Last year
the TTS was flown over an eight week period. |
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The
MDPR had one race that was 9:07
hours long with a rest period of 14 days after the last Hot Spot which was
5 hours long. Five of the 6 races had a 2 week rest period but 113km
official training tosses were given on the 7th day.
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| -The
TTS had 3 races that were 8:27 hrs,
8:22 hours & 8:54 hours over 18 days with rest periods between races of 7
and 10 days. The first 6 races were flown over a 4 week period for a total
of 1200 km. |
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-The
MDPR total flying time for winners
over 6 races was 33.4 hours. |
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-The
TTS total flying time for the
winners over 9 races was 45.75 hours. |
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| -The
MDPR race course I believe is over
grasslands and desert with daytime temperatures reaching in excess of 30
C. It is considered a mostly head wind course however last year only 2 races were
reported with strong head winds. The rest were slight head winds or no
wind conditions. To my knowledge there are no impeding geographical
features. |
| -The
TTS is
a headwind course where no headwind conditions are a rarity.
Average day times temperature would be around the mid 20 C range with high
humidity causing the Humidex (feels like condition) to approach the 30 C
range. The last half and the longest part of the course is boomerang
shaped because of the water hazards. This results in birds having to
probably fly a couple hundred km further than they are credited for so the
actual total flying distance is probably over 2700 km. |
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-The
MDPR had 5 training tosses of 113
km once racing began. I understand the birds are trained regularly during
the week up 50 km depending weather conditions to ensure that birds get
adequate exercise. They are not loft flown regularly. It would be
quite difficult
to flag 2000 to 5000 birds to ensure that all birds get adequate exercise.
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| -The
TTS does not train once racing
begins but depends on at least one hour a day forced flying to give the
birds adequate exercise. The goal of the TTS is different from the MDPR.
Here we are looking for low maintenance birds that are natural athletes
that would be suitable for the MDPR and similar races. |
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| -The last race of the MDPR is flown in February with birds banded
in the previous year. Therefore it is quite likely that some of the
bird will be over a year old. Most of the entries in the TTS will be
only 5 months old when shipped to the last race. |
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-Due
to the intake size the conditions and stress of acclimatization is much more challenging at MDPR.
However they administer a comprehensive medication program the birds as
soon as they arrive.
Click Here. Needless to say they have
no choice because of the intake numbers. Last year their losses from sickness
were about 10% during the quarantine period. Here, we avoid
medicating the birds as much as possible and our losses were in the same
range. |
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