Alain & his mother who still helps him with the pigeons.
The national race Bourges II was a fair race as early pigeons were clocked in almost all the areas off Belgium. Two winners (a youngster and a yearling) were clocked in Flemish Brabant while the national winner of the old pigeons was clocked in the south of the Hainaut province. It is in fact the two year old of the loft Veuve Roger Delbruyère who achieved the biggest performance that day as he was clocked with the highest speed off the entire release of 45.865 pigeons (1.195 m/min for 379 km) with a spectacular advance of 26 m/min on the second national winner. Seeing his advance and the short distance of his loft on this race, he was amongst the very first pigeons to enter in Belgium this 3rd of august 2019. Alain Delbruyère: ''He was among a group of several dozains of pigeons that were flying just above the loft when he suddenly went aside and fell like a bullet to the gate. If they would have passed 500 meters next to me, maybe I wouldn't have won the national victory. It was meant for me that day.''
As he races under the name Veuve Roger Delbruyère, the loft manager is Alain. He raced during many years in combination with his father, Roger, who was a very good pigeon fancier and they both had a fantastic list of performances at that time, including many early prizes on the national races. At the time, they were mainly breeding with pigeons from the late Marc Roosen. When Roger passed away at the end of the '90's, the colony was sold in a public auction but Alain decided to keep on racing and, several years later, he won the first national victory of his career on Argenton. It wasn't the first time that he won a race from the national calendar.
- 'The 69' (BE17-1067769)
The '69', the national winner on Bourges, is a medium sized pigeon, very well balanced and with very supple muscles. He also has a top vitality, which is clearly very interesting. Not really exploited as a young bird and as a yearling, he had been entered to several preparation flights in early 2019 before winning his prizes on the national races from Montluçon & Issoudun. Then, he finished his career with his brilliant stunt on Bourges.
When you take a look at his pedigree (click here to see his origins), you quickly understand why his performance wasn't so strange. In fact, you can find several national and international winners in his pedigree, including two iconic pigeons worldwide: his father is indeed a descendant of the 'Laureaat Barcelona' from the Gyselbrecht family as well as the 'Nasdaq' from the Casaert family, two pigeons born in the '90's, both national winners and both leading their own legendary dynasty as their descendants won several national victories. The '69' is only the most recent example. In the pedigree, we also noticed the trace of the 'Barcelona Rambo', 1st international Barcelona against 24.914 pigeons back in 2004 for the combination Vrosch-Meijers.
Congratulations to Alain and his mother for this wonderful national victory!