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 2^nd 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 3^rd 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:

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 1^st 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!.