Why do you train ?

For me with young birds it is to educate them to trap asap on arrival home. For old birds to give a bit more time on the wing when not flying as needed around home. Time on the wing is good when trained on the expected route home but imo the route home is dependant on wind and drag so when training it is always second guessing.

One definite reason where training is not required is to "teach" homing ability, the reason being they have already been lost.

after initial training with ybs I give a few more short tosses from a break point but as you say its all dependent on wind and drag on the day

I think Caramel has hit the nail right on the head!

Training is all about Education - but what are we trying to teach our birds?

The first thing the racing pigeon needs to learn is "Where is Home" in relationship to everything else around the loft. This it gets from daily exercise around the loft, and ranging.

To widen the pigeon's mental picture of its world, we take them training by car a few miles from home at first - say 10 or 15 miles away from the loft. This gives the bird a better view of its surroundings and trustfully it will or may have covered this area before when it was 'ranging' with the other birds.

When I had pigeons before, I would see my birds going off in one direction, then coming back overhead, then going off in a different direction. Because of this, I was reasonably sure that the birds were getting to know quite a large area, of maybe a 15 miles circumference of their loft. Therefore taking them a few miles in a basket, was really about getting the birds used to being in a crate or basket and flying out from it, rather than testing their knowledge or homing skills.
I think when training young birds, anything up to 60-70 miles from home is good education. After that distance – it is up the pigeon’s inherent abilities. And with yearlings and older, it is all about getting them back into the swing of finding their way home as quickly as possible and coming in the loft as quickly as possible – in other words - Racing.

All the best to those who are racing this weekend.
Phil

I think the reason is to teach them once liberated from the basket, to head for home as fast as they can, by the quickest route possible.