THE RACING PIGEON 29 MARCH 2024
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in my hand. These pigeons were beautiful specimens and were typical of pigeons every fancier dreams of owning. It is hardly possible to breed them even more perfect than they already are. Jan wanted to inbreed them as he loves the breeding side of the sport and I wished him a lot of luck for the future”. When Alan and myself visited Jan at Kerkdriel we could not fail to be impressed by his beautiful home and wonderful set-up which can only be described as a pigeon paradise. Before visiting I zoomed in on Google Earth mappings on Kerkdriel and you cannot fail to see the large factory complex which is Hooyman’s
Alun Jones, Jan and John.
Compost BV. Jan and his father Gerard were mush- room cultivators who decided that they were not satis- fied with the standard of compost available so decided to produce it themselves. Today their company collects about 6,000 tons of horse manure each week and converts it into compost for mushroom cultivation. This makes Holland the leading country in the world for compost production. Getting back to the Golden pair of breeders ‘Jonge Bliksem’ and ‘Dirkje’ it was late in 2006 that a late pair of youngsters were raised and put in the racing loft,
Interestingly it was not until 2009 when Gerard Koopman had his sale in Thorn that he first met Jan but within a month Jan visited Gerard accompanied by his friend Cor de Heyde, they got to know each other well and It was not too long before Gerard visited Jan to handle ‘Harry’ and this is what Gerard had to say about the champion. “Harry is without doubt a real champion
with a strong body and fits well in the hand. He is also very intelligent with a strong personality, just the way I like it. In my eyes he is a potential successor to my ‘Kleine Dirk’.” Incidentally when Gaby Vandenabeele visited Jan this is what he had to say, “In September I went to Kerkdriel and I took ‘Harry’ and his brothers and sisters
they performed very well. The following year 2007 seven more youngsters from the pair were entered into the racing team of which five won at least one first winning position on Dutch tele- text. Also the grandchildren performed well. Jan confided in me by saying after ‘Harry’ won his two National victories the demand for children and grand- children of the super couple was incredible. Being a sportsman and great competitor he clearly did not want to sell any of them but decided to contact Jan Hermans of De Duif to see what he could do. He suggested we sold one round of youngsters so that everyone had a chance to buy something related to the super couple. Fifty seven perfectly reared youngsters were selected all out of the line of the super couple but only one actual pair direct from the super couple would be sold. Jan said he will never ever sell any further birds from the super couple and he added anyone who knows him can confirm that this is a vow that he will keep forever. The rest is now history the Dutch pigeon sport came to a standstill on Friday 15th January 2010 when the sale
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