Down and Inside

Jack Prescott
(Internet Published) Nov 2000

The fastest hour, the most nerve wrecking hour, is the hour when the contesting Tippler man declares his time and starts to try and get his kit of Tipplers down. He has 60 nerve wrecking minutes to get all of his kit members down within bounds and inside of his loft otherwise he is disqualified, and there are no tolerances. A very, very harsh and severe rule if the tolerance is only a few minutes in excess.

Great Tippler men have fallen foul of this rule and have suffered the penalties and consequences. They have my sincere and deepest sympathies. In certain cases, such men have been subjected to hostile or severe supervision, which is only fair if all other competitors are subjected to the some kind of supervision. I am unhappy to say that they are not.

Apart from that there is a problem that all men have who fly the several issues of so called high flying pigeons will encounter. For some reason understandable or ridiculous these pigeons will fly erratically and often at a ridiculously high altitude and run out of daylight, perhaps to be lost overnight or forever. Sometimes a man may get them down pretty close to the loft but cannot quite coax them into the loft - certainly not within the one hour time limit, and all to often such idiots are out all night. A man may put it down to extreme nervousness, lack of control, lack of training, overfeeding, or stupidity.

Nevertheless, when a man flies into dark or bad light he must expect some kind of trouble as there is no logic in the mind of Tipplers and most other pigeons. That much I can guarantee.

It is proven that the very best and most honourable fall down on the "Down and Inside" rule within the allowed hour. They have certainly flown the time but have fallen down on a technicality. Nevertheless, it's a hard and fast rule, as most rules are!

[Internet Published Oct 2000 at http://www.tipplers.com/jack/]