Pigeon racer: ‘This is a sport for the brave’

By Jesse Granger

Sunday, Jan. 10, 2016 | 2 a.m.

A flock of pigeons descends on a small house in northeast Las Vegas. Their gray and white feathers flutter as the birds uniformly circle the residence then dive in for a landing.

Tony Sosa bursts through his back door just as the birds set anchor. He’s not there to shoo them away but greet them in celebration.

Pigeons — or as some call them, rats with wings — are seen by many as a nuisance. It’s illegal to feed them in some cities. But these are Sosa’s breadwinners.

The 58-year-old Cuban immigrant races the pigeons competitively.

His yard is filled with coops and cages, and his house is filled with trophies. Sosa’s well-kept, athletic pigeons bear little resemblance to the ones chased off of park statues.

“I love this sport,” Sosa said. “It’s my hobby, and it’s my passion.”

Pigeon racing has been around since the late 1800s. It involves releasing homing pigeons at various distances from their coop to see which make it home fastest. The birds wear tracking chips on their ankles that are read by a scanner when the pigeons enter their loft (the wood structure where racing homers are housed). Awards are given for fastest pigeon and fastest loft when all the pigeons’ times are averaged.

Distances typically range from 100 to 600 miles, but races over 1,000 miles have been recorded. Sosa usually participates in 400-mile races, because he says longer ones are too hard on the pigeons in the Las Vegas heat. Races sometimes are decided by milliseconds.

Homing pigeons can fly at altitudes of up to 6,000 feet and soar at an average speed of 50 miles per hour. The fastest pigeon speed recorded is 92.5 miles per hour.

Scientists believe the birds use magnetic and solar compasses to navigate. The earth’s surface has magnetic contours the birds can follow, and they know how to track the movement of the sun. Oxford University researchers found that pigeons also can track using landmarks such as rivers and roads.

The furthest homing pigeon flight ever recorded was 7,200 miles, from Arras, France, to Saigon, Vietnam. The journey took 24 days.

Not all pigeons are cut out for the sport. Unfit birds are weeded out in their youth.

“This is a sport for the brave,” Sosa said. “The good birds come back home, and the bad ones don’t.”

Sosa says typically only young pigeons wander off or are spooked away by predators such as hawks. Even then, it is rare.

Sosa keeps 45 to 50 birds in his coop, but one stands out — a large pigeon named Dreamer with shiny turquoise feathers around its collar. Sosa paid $1,000 for her.

A large grin stretches across Sosa’s face as he holds Dreamer; he fans her wing out to show off the quality of her feathers. Seconds later, he scolds the other birds in Spanglish as they fly past his head. Some might say he treats the pigeons as if they were his children.

The birds are housed in a sophisticated coop Sosa built. The roost stands more than 7 feet and has all the amenities the birds could dream of — a nesting area, a breeding center, feeding troughs and automated watering tanks. It took two weeks and about $3,000 to build.

“I spared no expense,” Sosa said. “Everything costs money, but we take extra good care of the birds so they can be healthy.”

Sosa says he spends over $2,500 every year on pigeon-related expenses, including a custom diet and special vitamins. He feeds the birds more oils and fats in winter and replaces proteins with carbohydrates and amino acids when race days approach.

Sosa trains the pigeons twice a day, at sunrise and in the afternoon, driving the birds 30, 50 or 60 miles away from home, then timing their trip back.

In competition, Sosa has released his pigeons from as far away as 100 miles north of Salt Lake City, only to welcome them home in less than a day.

Sosa’s friends Carlos Lopez and Cesar Viamontes also participate in pigeon racing, and the three have friendly competitions regularly.

“We are all friends now, but once we release the birds into the air, we are enemies,” Sosa joked. “Then they land, and we celebrate with a barbecue and a couple beers.”

There are high-stakes pigeon races around the world, including the Million Dollar Pigeon Race in South Africa, which features 4,300 birds from 25 countries competing for $1.3 million in prizes. But Sosa and his friends compete only for trophies, diplomas and pride.

“You get really nervous when the birds are flying and you know it’s close to the time of arrival,” said Lopez, 47, who has raced pigeons since 1989. “Every bird that you see come over the horizon sends your heart pounding.”

Few get more animated that Sosa. His nerves during competitions and over-the-top personality have earned him a nickname among Las Vegas pigeon racers — “El Gordo Del Wow!” for his bulbous physique and bombastic celebrations.

There’s no doubt Sosa is a good pigeon racer. His trophies abound, including one that stands almost as tall as him, earned during the 2009 Silver State Racing Pigeon Club Championship for average speed, champion bird and champion loft.

But Lopez and Viamontes say Sosa is an even better guy than he is pigeon trainer.

“When I came over here to America and found out who Tony was, I wanted to learn from him,” said Viamontes, 28, who recently migrated from Cuba. “Then I found out how nice of a guy he was. He took me into his house and treated me like family.”

Whether Sosa starts to compete for big-money prizes or continues competing as a hobby, El Gordo Del Wow says he’ll never stop racing pigeons.

And if anyone questions the group’s dedication, just ask Viamontes’ ex-girlfriend.

“In Cuba, I had a pigeon in my backyard, and I paid so much attention to it that my girlfriend said I have to choose her or the bird,” Viamontes said. “And as you can see, I’m still racing pigeons.”