It was a sunny day in mid April when residents from Vinh Chau coastal town in the Mekong Delta province of Soc Trang saw a group of people carry pigeons from Ho Chi Minh City to the coast and open the cages to release them.

They are members of the Racing Pigeon Association in the city’s District 8, whose pigeons were practicing for a 225km race from Con Dao Island to HCMC to celebrate the Reunification Day.

After releasing the birds, the group rushed back home and waited for them to return. The pigeon arriving at its cage the earliest will be the winner.

The racing pigeons are called ‘fighters’ for the long and dangerous route that they have to overcome.

Ngo Vi, a member of the association, said that the pigeons were methodically trained so that they could determine the shortest way back to their cages and cope with falcons, hawks and hunters on the racing ‘track’.

The result: 10 of 80 pigeons were present at their cages in HCMC. Another 20 showed up the next day and the remaining ones returned the following day.

Of them, three were very weak and had blood on their bodies. They were examined and scratches by claws of falcons or hawks were found. One sustained a wound from a hunting rifle.

The injured pigeons have to quit their racing career for good and will be kept for breeding. The pigeon breeders usually meet at the house of the association head Le Khai Dong in Da Tuong Street of District 8. The house’s balcony has a tidy row of cages where newborn, young and mature pigeons are kept.

Some members have built modern cage systems for their birds. For instance, Truong Dieu Huy’s cages, from Tan Phu District, automatically open at 7am every day so that the birds can fly out. At 8am, the trough routinely opens to provide food for them.

Huy even installed a device to sound the bell or send him a message when the birds return to the cage.

Feed for the racing pigeons includes various kinds of grains like rice, beans, fried corn and sunflower seed and minerals like clay and sand.

In front of each cage is a perch for the birds before they fly away and return. Young pigeons regularly perch there to observe the surrounding world.

It takes a lot of time and effort for the breeders to possess a good racing pigeon.

Pigeons are kept together in a big cage owned by Hai Nguyen in District 8 (Photo: Tuoi Tre)

Ngo Vi usually comes to Guangdong Province of China to seek outstanding racers for breeding or buy their eggs to incubate. Meanwhile, Le Khai Dong usually looks for the pigeons imported from Belgium and the Netherlands.

After having good pigeons, the breeders have to train them for the race. They first let the birds get familiar with and remember the position and the vicinity of their cage.

The pigeons then will practice flying from near to far distances, from their cage to a nearby street, then further to Saigon Bridge, Thu Thiem Tunnel or Can Gio District and even to Vung Tau City and Tra Vinh Province.

Long distance pigeon races have begun in HCMC since 2010, in which the birds must fly over 200-600km from HCMC to the central city of Da Nang and provinces of Phu Yen and Quang Ngai.

According to Ngo Vi, the HCMC’s racing pigeon association now has 100 members with the total birds reaching up to 6,000. Each race in 2011 gathered 60-100 pigeons. This year, over 200 took part.

A pigeon is numbered with a tag on its foot before the start of the race (Photo: Tuoi Tre)

Birds in their cage before a long race from Saigon to Da Nang at the length of 600km (Photo: Tuoi Tre)

Owners of the winning pigeons receive trophies after the Saigon - Da Nang race on April 6 (Photo: Tuoi Tre)