Winged athletes take over the skies - Pigeon racing enthusiasts look to develop sport in Jamaica

Racing pigeons, often referred to as thoroughbreds of the sky, have been gliding through the atmosphere, taking with them their owner's hopes that the non-tradition sport will one day take off and reach great heights in Jamaica.

The winged athletes have been racing for miles across, leaving areas such as Negril in Westmoreland and Port Antonio, Portland. The competing birds are taken from their lofts and taken to a release point several miles away. The birds must race to their homes, which are located in St Catherine and Kingston.

A race from Negril lasts roughly two and a half hours as the birds travel an average of 56 km/h over the 140 kilometre distance.

Tyrone Mutler, the man who is spearheading the sport locally, is hoping that Jamaicans will get smitten by pigeon racing.

"It's something that get your mind relaxed," Mutler said. "It's good to have animals, it's good to have birds. If you enjoy birds then you will enjoy pigeon sports."

Mutler said the sport requires homing pigeons to be put into race baskets then take them to a location where they will be released. The bird that travels the distance to their home loft the fastest wins. Yesterday the birds raced from Green Island in Hanover to the Corporate Area. Patrick Graham won in all three categories of races.

Mutler, who has more than 80 homing pigeons, said that he spends about $15,000 per month in feeding for his birds and trains them for at least five months before he enters them in racing.

He said that most of the pigeons that are released during races normally find their way back home.

"Once you train your birds and the birds are comfortable at the home, it's a strong possibility that they will come back. Ninety per cent of the time they will come back," he said.

He told THE STAR that the recession of 2008 affected the growth of the sport as he and his colleagues were unable to properly care of their pigeons and had to stop racing. After 12 years of inactivity, the Jamaica Racing Pigeon Federation was restarted in 2021. Now with nine members, the group has once per week races across three different categories. Owners stand a chance to win prizes ranging from bird feed and other resources as well as cash.

"It's a really big industry but at the same time it needs a lot more exposure locally. In Canada, in Belgium, in Holland, most of the guys who do pigeon racing, they just do pigeon racing. They don't work, they don't do anything at all, them just invest in birds and the prize that they get back is really big," he said.

Pigeon racing began in Belgium in the early 19th century. The sport gained prominence in the late 1800s in Great Britain, the United States, and France. In Jamaica, the sport is yet to take off in any real way but Mutler is hopeful that this will change soon.