THE RACING PIGEON 29 MARCH 2024
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– PAGES FROM THE PAST –
OF KERKDRIEL
by John David
W hen you hear the name Jan Hooymans you immediately think of a pigeon called ‘Harry’ which will undoubtedly go down in history as one of the greatest long distance performers ever to fly into the Netherlands in recent times. He was the winner in 2009 of 1st National Region 7 from Blois against 5,653 pigeons (fastest of The Netherlands “boven rivieren” 37,728 pigeons), 1st National Region 7 from Chateauroux against 5,979 pigeons (fastest of The Netherlands “boven rivieren” 22,340 pigeons) and 3rd NPO Region 7 from Chateaudun against 8,781 pigeons (also 3rd Northern Union 21,520 pigeons). He became the 1st National Ace Pigeon Europa cup Dortmand 2010 of the Netherlands, 1st National Ace Pigeon One Day Long Distance, the Best of the Best of the Netherlands and he is the best ever candidate to achieve the title of 1st National Ace Pigeon One Day Long Distance WHZB 2009.
unknown at that time. ‘Golden Lady’ was bought by Gerard Koopman on the occasion of the Gouden Duif celebration. The ‘Gentil’ (Olympiad pigeon from the old base) and the ‘Golden Lady’ were coupled and the ‘Kleine Dirk’ was born who became a world renowned racing and breeding champion. Of course today most of Gerard Koopman`s top pigeons have the blood of this super couple in their veins. Jan coupled the daughter of ‘Kleine Dirk’ with his best breeder ‘Jonge Bliksem’ a new world class breeding couple was born with ‘Harry’ a direct result of this coupling who as stated previously won 1st National twice.
I had the pleasure of handling supreme champion ‘Harry’ when on a recent visit to Jan Hooymans in the company of Alan Jones of Red Star Lofts and I can say with all honesty that although I have visited hundreds of the best lofts in Europe and South Africa over the last 40 years that Harry along with his brothers and sisters are the best pigeons I have ever had the pleasure to handle with absolutely perfect balance and beautiful feathering. So where did it all begin? For many years Jan was obsessed with long distance races and his main strain was based on the Theelen/Saya from which he had success. Later on he strengthened his breeding colony with birds from Cor de Heijde that eventually made up 90% of his colony which again brought him success. However from the late 1990’s when Jan started entering the race programme he felt that finishing second really wasn’t good enough. Jan has always been a winner throughout his life and until a few years ago was a very successful football player and was a member of the team that won the National champi- onship on no less than three occasions with V V Rossum. Jan has always had an iron will to win and he realised only an exceptional strain of pigeons would be good enough so in 2006 he completely rebuilt his racing team. Like many before him Jan went to Grand Master Gaby Vandenabeele of Dentergen. In fact it was a pure twist of fate that Jan went to Gaby in the first instant. Gaby is an accountant by profession and one of his customers recommended him to Jan who
first visited in 1999 and over the following years visited Gaby on many occasions. After his first visit he bought two youngsters from ‘The Turbo’ and one youngster from ‘The Wittenbuik’. Later he purchased a couple of youngsters from the combination of ‘Witenbuik’ and ‘Klein Bauwke’ (half-brother half-sister) as Jan is a great believer in inbreeding. At that time the ‘Wittenbuik’ was not available so Gaby gave Jan ‘Klein Blauwke’ to take home where she was paired to ‘Cupido’ son of ‘Wittenbuik’. Later four youngsters were acquired from a sister to ‘Wittenbuik’ which were full brothers and sisters to ‘James Bond’ who won 1st National from Bourges. Incidentally these were purchased by Jan before this great win. It was not long before the sister to ‘Wittenbuik’ was herself on the way to Kerkdriel. Jan then bought the best lines of ‘Kleinen’ followed by youngsters from the well known ‘Bliksem’ but Jan was insistent that Gaby would pair him to ‘Dolores’ a full sister to his father ‘Kolonel’. The end product being ‘Jonge Bliksem’ who is the sire of ‘Harry’. When Jan bought this pigeon in the Koopman sale at the beginning of 2006 he had never met Gerard. However he had read up about his strain for a number of years and was well aware that a new addition to the Koopman dynasty was added with the acquisition of the ‘Golden Lady’ in 1997. She of course is a daughter of the ‘Kannibaal’, 1st National Ace Pigeon Middle distance and was owned by Dirk Van Dyck who was relatively
Jan with John David.
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