RACING PIGEONS...SPORT OF KINGS 1984 video

This is the first part of a documentary about the sport of pigeon racing. I'm told that it's a sport played in every country of the world. The doc was made to convince the US Postal Service to commemorate the racing pigeon on a postage stamp. The pigeons are raised and trained to race home, sometimes from distances as much as 500 miles. The first bird home wins the prize which could be a trophy or money. The men and women in this video really love their birds.

I made it with my friend Manny Katz in 1984. He had friends in the valley that were going to a pigeon auction to buy new birds to train and race. When I got there and saw who was doing what and why I was hooked.

We sold this video by advertising in pigeon racing magazines, which to my surprise, exist around the world too. When we put the ad in a Japanese zine the little pink money orders started to roll in. We made more selling videos this way than we could have ever made selling them to PBS. There was no cable in those days.

I have DVDs of the entire video. If you've found this blog and want to purchase one, let me know.