“It all started around my 10th year of life. My parents lived in the polder, in the same street, where I still live. As an only child of hardworking young parents, I amused myself around the house. I had lofts everywhere with various animals, such as chickens, rabbits, a dog and pigeons. And so it where the pigeons that I became more and more interested in it, if only for the breeding of various colors. Soon after that, in 1981, I became a member of the pigeon club in Kerkdriel.
Like everyone, I started in the sport by getting pigeons from almost everyone in my association. Until I called in 1985 to long distance champion Jan Theelen and from him I got my first two long distance pigeons. Then I have been there many times for more pigeons and I bought some children from his legendary “510” at his total sales in 1989.
I have also been a number of times at the brothers Kuijpers and not to mention, the Saya brothers, where I was at home there. At Saya brothers I purchased 12 children of the “Abor”. Because of my busy work, I was not be able to bring out the best of the racers. Associational performance was good, but on a regional or national level, the performances are less.
In 1985 I was overall champion of our association. Harry Visser was my first ‘pigeonteacher’ at that time and I already had a lot to thank him. The years after, I went on stage at compost companies in various places in the world. I learned a lot from this stage and when I came back, I started an own composting compony, together with my father. My father and mother had absolutely nothing to do with pigeons, so when I was on stage, Harry Visser provided my pigeons with water and feed.
Through the crowds with our own composting, I had to accept that the performances of my pigeons would come in second place. The long distance seemed the best discipline to get results with a small need of time. I had to settle for the occasional top prize, but there certainly was in no landline. Harry kept the pigeons, as good as possible, and we lived together with a lot of fun to the sport. Also, drinking coffee at Bertus de Leeuw and talking overthere with a group of fanciers was (and is) our association of pigeonhobby for me.
Unfortunately, Harry Visser on his 63rd year died much too early. His good friend Herman van Kraanen, who already was a ‘regular on the floor fancier’ has taken over the duties of Harry. Unfortunately Herman also deceased too early on his 54th year. His brother Cees van Kraanen helped me a few years, so I could find someone who would do my pigeons for the complete week.
In late 1997 I met Cor de Heijde and was immediately impressed by its particularly homogeneous strain of pigeons. It soon became clear that we had a common passion, namely “Breeding top pigeons”!. After strict selection of my own pigeons, I proceeded for the most part on pigeons from Cor de Heijde. The years that followed were taken several rounds of youngsters at Cor, selected them in the autumn and the best places than in the breeding loft. This is done up to now still. Pigeons are exchanged vice versa. So, Cor happily could get back pigeons from his own tribe, after the terrible 2009 theft !
Besides playing on the extreme long distance races (above 800km), I had the ambition to excel also in the middle and one day long distance races (between 500 – 800km). Through a customer of our compost factory we came in contact with grandmaster Gaby Vandenabeele from Belgium, Dentergem. Not long after, I did a loft visit to this great master and I was immediately impressed by the quality and appearance of his pigeons. After consultation with Gaby, we made various heavy inbreeding links in his breeding loft with pigeons from the “Kleinen” line, in mine opinion the best line. The youngsters from these couples moved to Kerkdriel to link them then a year later to our current stock.
Not long after this visits at Gaby, I started to win regularly topprizes, nevertheless the taking care of my birds was quite moderate by the busy work in the compost plant. The “Jonge Bliksem” (original Gaby) was from the beginning a very good breeder but my feeling said it could even better if I could find a special hen. During a sale of Gerard Koopman I bought one of the last children of the world famous “Kleine Dirk”. This was the beautiful “Dirkje” ! The result is known worldwide; a super couple is born with “Harry” as an absolute standard-bearer of the colony. Brothers and sisters of “Harry” are inimitable, both in racing as in breeding performance.
Because I was once again building a new composting and even it became more busier this time, I looked for someone who went into my lofts full time, 7 days a week. And so, starting in 2009 with the arrival of Piet Broeders. Since his arrival, the flight performance has improved with great strides…it results in many NPO top 10 placings and the discovery of worldclass supercrack “Harry”. In 2015, the tasks distributed over a fresh new team, where Mario mainly focuses on taking care of the racing team and Christian at the breeding team. Both under the supervision of me, Jan. As a team we are motivated to the bone in order to achieve peak performances and to share the fun of the sport with everybody all over the world.
Kerkdriel, Jan Hooymans
Niergnies, 13-06- Saturday, June 13, we participated for the first...