The judges would start your racing timer when your pigeons were released. You would hop on your horse with your timer and head back to your pigeon farm or house. When your homing pigeon would arrive back at his perch, you would remove the band from his leg, place it in the slot of your timer, turn the crank or key, and secure the band at the same time the timer would place a time stamp on the recording paper of your timer. After all of your pigeons had arrived home, you would take your timer back to the judges, they would remove the lock and seal, remove your recording tape, and calculate how fast your pigeons had flown.