Informative relevant articles relating to racing pigeons.

THE NEW WAVE CONTINUES

As a follow up to my last article, there are a couple of other similar European middle distance strains that are attracting interest amongst the Australian fancy and have started to, or are about to, arrive on our shores.

G & S VERKERK of Alphen aan de Rijn

This father & son partnership are described as the hottest flyers in Holland. In 2009 they won many awards and I shall mention the results of just three races last year in which would have broken all records.

In the Bourges NPO, 585km, against 8,545 birds they timed 14 pigeons between 4^th and 19^th positions.

Two weeks later from Argenton NPO, 631km, against 3,452 birds, they took the first 13 positions and in the National against 6,595 birds they took the first five prizes and 13 prizes in the first 15. This was a difficult race on a very hot day with the first pigeon taking 9 hours and 5 minutes for a winning velocity of 1157 mpm.

Then a little later from St Quentin, against 1195 birds, they took 27 prizes in the first 29 placings, leaving only 2^nd & 16^th places for the other competitors.

The Verkerk’s describe their birds as mainly Janssen based. When we look into the make-up of the VERKERK pigeons we find the following names:- Jan Ouwerkerk, De Wit Brothers, Vroomen Brothers Ad Schaerlaeckens and Willem De Bruijn, we find out why.

Jan Ouwerkerk owns a powerful family of Janssen’s based on the lines of the “Verbart 46”.  

The De Wit Brothers, Henk & Jaap, both passed away in the early 90’s and their birds were auctioned in 1993. As mentioned in my previous article, the De Wit’s built up a successful family of birds from De Klak (Janssen). They once won a National Barcelona in hard weather with a pure De Klak.

Vroomen Brothers established their family from a few Limburg top lofts including the Visscher Brothers.

Ad Schaerlackens birds of today are largely Janssen x Hofkens x Van Loon combined with his old family.

In my previous article I mentioned the base of the Willem De Bruin pigeons. They were De Wit Bros. (De Klak), Karel Stikkelorum & Steven Van Breemen.

So you can see the heavy influence of the Janssen’s in the Verkerk pigeons. They race exceptionally well from 150km to 800km, i.e.,  generally over 100km further than the strains mentioned in my previous article.

Important base pigeons in the Verkerk strain were:- “De Reimsdoffer” of De Wit Bros.

                                                                                             “De Midfondkampioen” of Ouwerkerk.

                                                                                             “De Gouden Kweekduif” of Vroomen Bros.

The Verkerk’s are not ones to stand still as to do so means falling from the top perches. They have since purchased “Magic Amore” from Gerrard Koopman, a daughter to top hen “Amore”. In December 2007 they purchased “Lady Duego” from the public auction of Sangers-Ung. She had won 5 National NPO positions between 7^th to 26^th against large birdage and is also a car winner, and just recently purchased the 1^st National Ace Pigeon All Round at the total auction of Chris Koring.

Some of their older champion racers & breeders are “Olympic Survivor”, “Olympic Ronaldo”, “Olympic Sogno”, while some of the more recent ones are “Unbelievable”, “Spongebob”, “Olympic Stradivarius”, “Olympic Solange”, “Kate”, “Magic Amore”, “Houdini”, “Nadala”, “Icarus”, “Sita”, “Dragon”, “Johnny English”, “Olympic Shakira”, “Olympic Evita”, “Mission Impossible”, “Evolution”, Cinderella”, “Do” and “Oprah”.

Their pigeons are medium in size, blues & blue chequers with dark eyes. There are very few pearl eyes in this family.  They have 9 Olympiad Sport Class pigeons and have never sold one of them. They rightly maintain that they need to keep their very best in order to stay at the top.  

AD SCHAERLAECKENS

Ad Schaerlaekens is a famous Dutch pigeon flyer, magazine writer and Author who lives at Baarle-Nassau on the Belgian-Netherlands border and competes at the top level in both countries. From his Dutch loft he races his old birds and from his Belgian loft, which is approx 10km into Belgium, he races his young birds. One reason for this is that in Holland it is now law that young birds cannot be raced further than 500km but in Belgium there is no such restriction. In 1979 he won 1^st National Orleans and he followed this up with two further 1^st National wins from Orleans in1985 & 1996.

His strain has been responsible for thousands of winners both for himself and others in the above mentioned two countries and also for many fanciers world-wide. His original old family is still in the background of his strain. When he was young and in his early years in the sport he cleaned the lofts of a very rich neighbor who bought many top pigeons and no expense was spared. From time to time the young Schaerlakens was given eggs by his rich neighbor and it was from the hatchings of these eggs that formed his old original family. In later years several very influential birds were added over time to his old family to form the Schaerlaekens family of today. Pigeons such as the “Fondman Hofkens” , a direct Hofkens pigeon; “Son Young Merckx”, a direct son of the famous “Young Merckx” of the Janssen Brothers; The “Janssenhen”, whose parents were both direct Janssen pigeons. She won 1^st Orleans in hot weather, 6^th National.  The “Good Yearling” & “Sister Good Yearling” were produced from the mating of “Fondman Hofkens” and the “Janssenhen”. The “Sister Good Yearling” when mated to “Son Young Merckx” produced 1^st National Orleans. The descendants of the “Good Yearling” & the “Sister Good Yearling” are responsible for hundreds of winners & Ace pigeons up to Provincial & National level. Other key pigeons in the family are “Olympiad”, another Hofkens pigeon; “Fast Blue”, a Van Loon x Janssen and of course “Sissi”, the legendary breeding hen responsible for thousands of winners. “Orleansdoffertje” & “Creilman”, two of the most famous children of “Mattens” & “Sissi” also played an important part in the Schaerlaekens strain. Another influential pair was the “Supercouple”, a combination of his own old line crossed with Voets. Like all other champion flyers he is also one who does not stand still as his strain is constantly evolving. Every two or three years he will introduce 4 or 5 pigeons from a successful fancier in Holland or Belguim who fit his criteria re racing results. If they prove to be successful with his own pigeons they will stay, if not they are out.           

So it can be seen that the Verkerk & Schaerlaecken strains, along with the Koopman & Van Lint strains that I wrote about in my previous article, owe a lot to the Janssens & Van Loons. As the Janssens & Van Loons are now very well established in Australia, for fanciers to continue on a successful path it would be logical to carefully select the best and most successful Janssen/Van Loon lines to blend in with these newer introductions.