That one column

Why do you think some people play with 75, 100 or even 200 pigeons or more?
It can't be pleasant to take care of so many pigeons every day. The answer is simple: There is no easier way to make a lot of money. They know how naive many foreigners are. They hope for one or two lucky birds, early prizes, and know that potential buyers have no idea how many pigeons they race.

Those foreigners have become smarter, but only a bit. They study results instead of advertisements, but in the wrong way. They only pay attention to the first prizes that were won.
But what is the meaning of early prizes if only a few prizes were won and a whole army of birds were too late and did not win a prize?
Why are the same ones often successful with purchases and others fail?
The smart ones here pay attention to that one column:

The column where you can see how many pigeons participated in a competition and how many prizes were won. Compare Mr Poor to Mr Good.
The competition is from Orleans, the participation 6,000 pigeons, so 2,000 prizes.
Mr. Poor wins 7th and 21st prize. So very good, it seems. ‘It seems’ because you need to know more! If the result also shows that he raced 75 pigeons of which only 11 won a prize, is it still good?
If Mr. Good ‘only’ won 8 prizes he was infinitely better than what Mr Poor achieved with his two early pigeons if Mr. Good only entered 9 birds. So simple:

- 11 prizes from 75 birds is a drama. Even with 2 early birds.

- 8 prizes from 9 birds is real good. Even when clocked not too early.

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A mail from abroad inspired me to write this.
It said: 'Mr. XXX won an early prize again. He must have supers.'
That early prize was right, but the race was for him a catastrophe.
Nobody had a poorer result. More than 100 birds of his loft were too late and did NOT win a prize.