To be a successful racing pigeon fancier over a long period
of time one needs to have a successful strain or family of pigeons and
a suitable cross to put into this strain from time to time. Some may
have two or more successful families and it is a matter of choosing
certain subjects within these families with which to cross in order to
produce the necessary hybrid vigour for
racing. In this instance there is no necessity to go outside the loft
to introduce a cross. The number of successful strains or families
evolved since the beginning of pigeon racing would number in the
thousands.
The popular belief is that all strains of racing pigeons
originated from the work done by Mons Ulens & Beeranaerts which was disputed at that time by Mons Georges Gits.
Another belief is that the racing pigeon originated from ship birds
used in the early 1800’s by Dutch, English
& Irish fishermen to advise when they were due back in port and of
their catches, and by ships captains sailing the channel ports to
advise their land based agents details of their cargo manifests and
E.T.A. Some of these birds found their way to little known fanciers
such as Coulellier & Dedoyard etc., and gradually they found their
way to master breeders, the likes of Van Schingen,
Vekemanns, Hansenne,
Wegge, etc., and maybe even Gits himself. These fanciers through thorough
testing and racing improved and refined these old ships birds into the
base for today’s racing pigeons. The correct story we will never know
now but the continued crossing of successful birds of similar type
resulted in a multitude of successful strains which nowadays would be
too numerous to name.
Two successful early Australian crossings that come
immediately to mind are the Harrison x Jurion and the Bricoux
x Sion. So successful were they that they
became strains in their own right. Eventually, fanciers didn’t consider
them as cross, they became “pure” Harrison Jurions
& “pure”
Bricoux Sions.
The Harrison strain originated in England around the year 1900 and emanated from a
single stock pair and takes its name, not from the breeders of the
pair, but the owner George Harrison of Oakamoor,
Staffordshire,
who
mated
them.
Without going too deeply in the
description of this famous pair that bred countless winners, the cock
of the pair was bred by Sam Johnson and the hen of the pair, a mosaic,
was bred by A. Mellor. The ancestry of this pair was a mixture of Orchardson’s Bonami
(28 x 27) with the well tried old English strains of W.C. Moore, John
Wright, Stanhope and T.W. Thorougood
(partly through Southport crack E.L.B. Bower) with Logan, Wegge, Gits &
J.O. Allen in the background. This famous pair and their four parents
were bred by five different breeders, only Sam Johnson figuring twice
in the breeding so it was the result of numerous crosses. Some of the
winners of this pair for George Harrison were:-
“Oakamore”, “Lloyd George”, “Little Favourite” “Sensational” & “Sudden Death”.
Lloyd George, Oakamore & Sudden Death
along with another son “ Earthenware” plus several other children of
the pair were exported to Maximilian Foy of Sydney, Australia where
they succeeded in dominating long distance racing for a considerable
period. Norman Rhead, convoyer
to the N.F.C. for many years also concentrated on the Harrisons with
success and despite the fact that the cream of the family went more or
less to Max Foy in Australia, helped found some of England’s soundest long distance families.
The Jurions were imported into Australia in the very early 1900’s. Two Adelaide fanciers who imported them and whom
immediately come to mind are H.A. Taylor & D. Cudmore.
Mons August Jurion
lived at Braine-Le-Compte but his pigeons
belonged to the Brusssels type as this was
the type of pigeon he bred and raced. They descended from the Chas. Wegges via Jules Janssens.
He
also
obtained
many
of his best birds from his great friend Delmotte.
The
Delmottes
were an older strain which descended direct from the Van Schingen, one of the early founders of the
racing pigeon. They were even a generation ahead of the Wegges. Jurion’s greatest pigeon was
Le Revenue with which he won the pools in the Grand National twice. His
father was Vieux Roux Delmotte and his
mother was a pure Diable
hen. Many fanciers outside of the continent, even today, find it
difficult to understand what Belgian breeders meant in their pedigrees
as “pure”. It is simply that when a bird was bred from parents
containing part of the same blood on both sides, the children are
described as “pure”. Mons Jurion was a careful in-breeder
and his best pigeons were mostly blue chequers
and red chequers. They possessed good
feather, and were of a handsome type-good bodies and medium sized. When
Australian fanciers of that time period i.e., the early 1900’s crossed
the Harrison with the Jurion
they produced an extremely reliable long distance racer and the
Harrison Jurion virtually established
itself as a winning long distance strain in its own right for many
years across the nation. Although the Harrisons & the Jurions were very successful in England as
individual strains in their time, I can find no reference to the cross
even being mentioned in that country so one can only assume that few,
if any, tried this cross and if some did, as surely you would think
they would have, little success must have resulted.
The Bricoux & Sions came onto the scene a little later. Mons Bricoux was at the
peak for twenty years between 1919 to 1939, the period between the two
world wars. Dr Bricoux
was an inbreeder who acknowledged that
occasionally a cross had to be brought in. He was a master at the
widowhood system and won 14 x 1st Nationals, 12 x 2nd
& won 125 x top 20 positions. His pigeons were medium in size with
wide & rounded backs, rigid vents and were extremely strong in
constitution. The Kleine Geschelpte was one of his great champions who
was sent five times to the Pau National and won on each occasion. The Bricoux
descended from the remarkable strain developed
by Chas Wegge. The Wegges
were large birds but his friend Jules Janssens,
whose
strain
was
developed
directly from the Wegges,
were
also large but generally less so than the Wegges.
Some
of
the
greatest
strains in Belgium owe a great deal to the Janssens
Wegges and after the dispersal sale
of Chas Wegge’s birds in 1898 the Janssens loft became the most reliable font of
this great strain. Van De Elst gained
remarkable success from the extreme distances, especially from Rome, in the years 1909-1913 with Jules Janssens pigeons. In his day Wegge was supreme in Belgium races beyond 200
miles and was responsible for many famous and more contemporary long
distance strains such as Jules Janssens
& Bricoux, as previously mentioned, Stassart, Sion (of
France), Delbar, Catthrysse
Bros., and most of their rival contemporaries. The Bricoux,
a
combination
of
Grooters, Bekeman
& Wegge
and later Sion, were imported
into
Australia
back
in
the era of the early to mid 1900’s by numerous
fanciers, some direct from Dr Bricoux
himself & many via fanciers in England who had procured this strain.
The Sions were imported into Australia within about the same time frame as the Bricoux as both men were at their top in their
respective countries during the same period. Australian fanciers
crossed the two and the Bricoux Sion became a very reliable winning middle to
long distance hard day strain, particularly in South Australia. According to the American Charles Heitzman, of Louisville, Kentucky, who
introduced many pure Sions to his lofts in
the 1920’s & 1930’s, Mons Paul Sion started his famous strain with 26 youngsters
from Chas Wegge of Lierre,
a
cock
from
Kikkens of Antwerp and one
bird from Dellathouwer.
It is also said that Paul Sion
cultivated his old Griz (grey) strain
which originated from a son of a famous French distance racer named
Gris Dugniol and he also introduced a
champion mealy cock from Dugniol. The dam’s side of this cock went back to Vekemans red of the Wegge
strain. The mealy cock was mated to a mealy hen and produced a blue hen
with black eyes which turned out to be a champion racer. Sion was an out crosser, not an inbreeder, so it is no surprise that this hen
was mated to a cock of Pynen/Delathouwer
bloodlines. This mating produced the “Rouge Sion”,
a
great
racer
&
breeder & one of Sions
pivotal pigeons. He & Dr Bricoux were
friends and often exchanged pigeons so it was of no surprise of the
success that followed for Australian fanciers when they crossed the Bricoux & the Sion. It is noted in his stud book that Jules Janssens also supplied birds to Sion, and Heitzman
claims that Jules Janssens also used Sions so there was obviously an interchange of
pigeons occurring from time to time to keep their birds at the top.
Other top Belgian fanciers to use Sions
were Lucien Bastin, Evrard
Havenith, Guilliame
Stassart, Ernst Duray,
Pascal
Delrez, Arthur Marchal,
Cyril
Demil, Menard Putman, Comines, Vanderlinden, Lamotte & Blondeel.
A
third
cross
was
also used by numerous Australian fanciers and that
was the Stassart. Numerous old Port
Adelaide fanciers flew successfully, especially on the difficult South
East route, their Bricoux Sion Stassart based
families and as the Stassarts also came
down from the Wegges via Jules Janssens they were naturally similar and very
compatible strains, but it was due to the success of the Bricoux x Sion in
Australia that earnt this cross the
privilege to become a strain in its own right.
The Harrison Jurion & Bricoux Sion
combinations are, to the best of my knowledge, successful combinations
made mainly by Australian fanciers of yesteryear. The Harrison Jurion combination would never have occurred in Belgium or elsewhere on the Continent as the Harrison was an English strain and therefore continental fanciers
would have had no interest in it. In fact the Belgians had little
interest in any strain not originating in Belgium despite successful strains being established
over the border in France, Germany & Holland. This remained the
case for many decades despite the general acknowledgement that the
Dutch arguably surpassed the Belgians over 20 years ago. This is
certainly the case here in Australia because by far more winners are coming from
Dutch imports than from those imported from Belgium. However, the fact remains that it was the
Belgians who created the racing pigeon and it is from Belgian strains
that practically all successful racing pigeon strains are traced back
to.
The Bricoux Sion
combination would have been used by few in Belgium due to the same reason. Sion
was a Frenchman and despite establishing a very successful strain, very
few Belgians, with the apparent exception of the likes of those at the
very top of the sport i.e., Bricoux, Janssens, Stassart,
etc., would import birds from across the border, whether it be from
France, Germany or Holland. This attitude appears to have softened
slightly in recent decades
The next and final cross that I shall mention that has become
a strain in its own right is a universal one, one that has proved
successful in perhaps every pigeon racing country in the World and that
is the Janssen x Van Loon. For those who came in late, a brief outline
on the origins of the Janssen Bros – Arendonk
strain. It was started way back in the very late 1890’s by the father,
Henri Janssen. Henri was born in 1872, got
his first pigeons in 1886 and died in 1946. Various scribes over the
years have said that the Jules Janssens
pigeons, Wegge in origin, are at the base
of the Janssen-Arendonk strain. It is
generally recognized that Henri and Jules were not related. Henri
Janssen was fairly secretive about his old original family saying only
that it comprised of birds which came from his own surrounding area and
he accepted only the very best; only those which found his favour in eyes, performance, looks and natural
health & vitality. It is thought that because Henri had virtually
the same surname as Jules, when they met, Jules befriended him and made
available to him birds of the highest quality from his loft. Did the
original old family owe a lot to the long distance Wegges
of Jules Janssens? Some believe and say so
while others say nothing, thus leading to doubt. On the death of Jules Janssens, Tommy Buck of England purchased all
remaining birds in his loft, along with the Stud Book (1893 and
onwards) of Jules Janssens. After this
purchase many fanciers in England and on the Continent considered T. Buck to
have had the finest loft of stock birds in Europe. In 1971 Jack Lovell of Colliers Wood, London, purchased the
entire stud of Tommy Buck’s Jules Janssens
and the Stud Book of Janssens was passed
on to Lovell as well. Lovell openly advertised in Squills
Diary that the Jules Janssens stud book
contains names the following fanciers who had birds from him:- G. Gits, Jurion, Grooter, Delbar, Vandevelde, Van Der
Espt founded his loft on his birds,
JANSSEN OF ARENDONK were founded on this strain. He mentions the birds
he supplied to Coopman, Carpentier, Pittevoil,
Gallez, Delmotte,
Vekeman, and many others. In later
years Dr Bricoux, Stassart,
Sion, Tremmery
and Havenith, concentrated on his birds.
The Catthrysse family
via Vandevelde were also of this
strain. A red cock bird of Janssens
strayed to N.Barker of Brusssels & upon reporting it Janssens gifted it to him. It bred many good
birds for him and later on he let J.W. Logan have him and Logan considered it his best breeding cock. The
great Jim Kenyon’s black pieds were Janssens via T. Thorogood’s
lofts which later Kenyon crossed with the best of the Delbars with great results. F.W.Marriott
during the 1930’s had birds from T. Buck, year after year, Mostly Janssens x Reys. I
am digressing so let’s get back on track. Jules Janssens
states in his stud book that Janssen of Arendonk
were founded on his birds.
It is interesting to note however that in Ad Schaerlaeckens book, “JANSSEN BROTHERS ARENDONK-
The Greatest pigeon fanciers of all Time”, researched & originally
published in the early to mid 1980’s. It is the only book published on
the Janssen Brothers and which goes into great detail and research, the
“Holy Grail” or “Bible” for Janssen Bros – Arendonk
enthusiasts, there is not a single mention of Jules Janssens anywhere. Probably the Janssen Brothers
did not go into any great detail as to the origin & composition of
their father’s old strain which was rejuvenated on three occasions over
a period of about 40 years with the introduction of two reds from Ceulemans, several pigeons of the Schoeters bloodlines both direct from Schoeters himself and his great friend Cas Goossens, and
finally in 1960, a single pigeon, the Halve Fabry
from Victor Fabry.
Henri
had
seven
sons
in
Fons, Frans,
Charel,
Louis, Adriaan, Sjef
and Vic. The first
mentioned two brothers married and started their own lofts based on the
Henri Janssen & sons pigeons, with a few slight variations. When
Henri died, the other five brothers carried on as Janssen Bros-Arendonk. It was Fons
who did the scouting for new introductions, not that there were ever
many, when they thought they were needed. The first introduction
recommended by Fons was just two pigeons,
a red from Fonne Ceulemans
of Berlaar in 1919 and another red in
1926. This is where the reds & mealies
in the strain originate from. Little is said about the origin of these Ceulemans pigeons except to say they were a
superior race, had a certain awareness or winning ability and their
most striking characteristic was winning races with minutes to spare.
For a generation at Arendonk red pigeons
were hatched on a regular basis. The “Wondervoske”
and
her
progeny,
the
“Bange of 51” &
the “Bange of 59” and latter day champions
such as “Rode Appie” & the “Famous 05”
of Camphuis which ended up in the Eijerkamp stable, all posses some of that Ceulemans blood. Some 15 years later several
birds from the loft of Joseph Schoeters of
Herenthout were introduced, again on
the advice of Fons Janssen. Charel Janssen purchased two more at a joint
sale between Schoeters and Goossens. On several later occasions the Janssen
Bros., approached Schoeters to buy more
pigeons but on each occasion Schoeters
replied that he had none for sale and referred them to Cas Goossens who kept nothing other than Schoeters pigeons. Several more purchases were
made in those years from Goossens and it
is from the Schoeters pigeons via the
renowned “Schalieblauwe” of 1932 that the
slates were produced. The “Schalieblauwe’
in fact was a pigeon of the Schoeters
family purchased by the Janssen Brothers from Cas Goossens.
Schoeters was a brewer in Herenthout and obtained his first pigeons from
his father Benoit. It is thought that Benoit acquired pigeons from Chas
Wegge of Lier.
It
is
also
thought
he obtained pigeons from Swiggers,
one
of
the developers of the modern racing pigeon, and these Swiggers pigeons were thought to be Wegge & Grooters.
The
Schoeters pigeons were again a
superior race of bird and had a close connection to the Wegges. Joseph crossed his choice of his
father’s birds with pigeons from Mr de Ceulaer of Noorderwijk.
Back
then
De
Ceulaer had a dark cock which
was a champion racer. Week after week it created a sensation by its
incredibly early arrivals. Schoeters
bought a daughter of this cock and in 1928 the dark cock himself
occupied Schoeter’s loft for a few weeks
to produce a couple of eggs. Much of Schoeters
fame was due to his “Bordeaux hen” who won a race from this town by two hours. The father
of this “Bordeaux hen” was saved by Schoeters
when he saw him sitting in a basket which was to go to the poulterer’s for slaughter. Schoeters
purchased him for a few francs and mated him to one of his best hens,
as you would. Just what this cock was is not said but in 1927 he bred
three superior hens from this mating. One of these hens, not the “Bordeaux hen”, was mated with the “De Ceulaer cock the following year. It was from
this pair that Schoeters bred the famous “Aap” and of the several pigeons that the Janssens did manage to purchase direct from Schoeters was a daughter of the “Aap”. In all
probability the old original family of Henri Janssen, which crossed so
well with the Ceulemans years before,
contained much of the Jules Janssens Wegge blood thus making it a very compatible
& successful cross with the Schoeters.
I think this was the case considering what was written in Jules Janssens Stud Book. Much later, in 1960, the
Halve Fabry was introduced. It was half
Victor Fabry but also half Janssen Bros-Arendonk. These are the only introductions to
the original family, the family which quite probably had a fairly high
percentage of Jules Janssens bloodlines in
it. To round off this very brief outline on the history of the Janssen
Brothers birds, it is said that although Ulens
is arguably regarded as the man who “created” the modern racing pigeon
and the likes of Van Schingen, Vekemans, Gits, Swiggers, Hansenne,
Wegge, Janssens,
Grooters and others further improved
upon it, it was Henri Janssen and his sons who upgraded the racing
pigeon even further to what we know it is now.
The base of the Louis Van Loon
pigeons was formed shortly after the end of World War II. It was
Janssen based and the Janssen Brothers of Arendonk
claim the original Janssens obtained by
Louis Van Loon came from Frans, the second
oldest of the two brothers who got married and moved out of their
parental home and established lofts of their own. Unlike the eldest
brother Fons, who moved away from Arendonk, Frans
lived and raced all his life in Arendonk. Frans raced very successfully with birds from
home and his brother Fons. He also had
very good birds from a Van Craenendonk.
They were wonderful birds because of the success that Van Loon of Poppel achieved was absolutely phenomenal. Many
others who had the Van Loon family were enormously successful and
gained fantastic results. Van Loon became unbeatable in the 60 mile
sprint races from Quievrain and after a
few short years was expelled from his club due to his outstanding
successes. It became obvious that if he wanted to keep racing he would
have to join a middle distance club. To give his Frans
Janssen based sprinters the extra distance qualities needed he went to
the Catthrysse Brothers of Moere who were right at the top of the Belgian
middle & long distance racing at that time. He brought the
bloodline of the magnificent ’45 and crossed this line into his own
birds. Being a master breeder, it didn’t take long for Van Loon to
combine the speed and orientation of the Janssens
and the endurance of the Catthrysse.
Within a couple of years he was winning most events in the middle
distance club and it wasn’t long before he was expelled again due to
his incredible success. There was only one step left for Van Loon if he
wished to compete in the sport and that was long distance. He decided
not to specialize and compete in all events from 60 to 700 miles and he
continued to improve his birds by purchasing from Desmet-Matthys,
Van
Rijn-Kloek and in 1970 he purchased
two daughters of the famous “Pandoer”, the
best racer of that year in Belgium. The “Pandoer”
was owned and raced by Kil & Son of Zandvliet-Antwerp. The Antwerp Union was the
strongest competition in the world and in 1973 he twice won 1st
prize from Melun, 1st Bourges
Provincial, 1st Etampes by 5
minutes and 1st Orleans by 12 minutes. With these new
introductions the Van Loon pigeons proved themselves in the 600 mile
races including 8th & 9th National St. Vincent while flying the longest distance and
17th place in the once only flown 900 mile race from Allicante.
In the years that followed fanciers all over the world began
crossing the Janssen Brothers-Arendonk
birds with the Van Loon with tremendous success. Possibly one of the
first to do so was John & Garry Squibb of Planet Brothers fame, Romford, Essex, England. During the late 1970’s-early 1980’s they
became regular visitors to the Janssen Brothers and over this time they
purchased no less than 50 direct bred Janssen Brothers pigeons and had
one of the finest collection of Janssens
outside of Arendonk. They also looked for
other very successful fanciers with Janssen based strains which led
them to Hofkens and Van Loon from whom
birds were purchased. After blending many of these pigeons together
they achieved unprecedented success in their Federation, results
hitherto never seen before. In 1983 they won 55 firsts with 8 x 1st
Federations with birdages up to 2,785 and
in 1984 no less than 40 x 1st prizes old birds only and
winning the Federation on 13 occasions. One of their most famous
pigeons was a bird they called “Scrumpy”.
As a youngster he won 3 races but on many occasions when he was 2nd
or 3rd he was beaten by loft mates. In 1984 “Scrumpy” was nominated for an R.P.R.A. award for
outstanding performances. He was a pure Van Loon pigeon. At the end of
his racing career he had won 30 x 1st first prizes.
In the late 1980’s Hans Eijerkamp
& Sons scoured the countryside of Holland & Belgium for super
successful fanciers racing the Van Loons. They obtained some of the
best Van Loons available in Europe and
also purchased direct from Van Loon himself on several occasions. While
they had a super stud of Janssens,
probably the best in the World, which were winning week after week,
they weren’t satisfied. To reach the top and stay there the search to
improve must continue and they believed the best Van Loons available
crossed with their super Janssens would
improve their results even further. They were not wrong. Their Janssen
Van Loons started winning right from the outset and now 20 years later
they are still winning stronger and more consistently than ever right
up to 900 km.
Hundreds, correction, thousands of fanciers world-wide are
crossing and creating their own winning Janssen Van Loon families.
Belgium, Holland, Germany, UK, USA, Australia, Taiwan, China, Japan,
Canada, Italy are just a few where the Jansen
Van Loons are winning by far more than their share. There is no doubt
in my mind that the Janssen Van Loon is a universal performer and is
indeed a strain in its own right.
Picture from page 245 Janssen Brothers Arendonk The greatest pigeon
fanciers of all time by Ad Schaerlaeckens
