Monday the 17th of April 2010: under a beautiful sun, the sails were turned towards Turnhout.
Most of us still remember the famous Blairon barracks where , after a mini-training, the conscripts were sent to one of the then many barracks in the nearby Germany to serve the country whether they wanted to or not....
Turnhout is also known for its card museum and God knows, the Belgians love to play cards...
After this touristic intro, over to the real reason for our visit to the Heizijde: there lives and races one of the most feared and notorious sprint racers of the land, namely Karel BOECKX, who has been helped and supported for years by son Daniel , who knows the fine art of the trade, just like his father....
Ad Scharlaekens from a befriended magazine has known this for years and has a great respect for this champion and who are we to argue?
The traditional questions were asked and I will try to state the simple but accurate answers as briefly as possible, because as it always is by the better fanciers..... the good pigeons!!!.
He started in 1972 with the strain from VDBOSCH- Berlaar via Miel VERHAERT- Vorselaar, also well-known in the pigeon world.
The successes were not long in coming and the feeling of the fanciers, paired with the top quality of the pigeons, immediately set the cash register ringing and the first prizes rained down like cats and dogs.
Dr vet F.MARIEN, known by many as an integer vet, but also a sublime pigeon fancier, was the man who gave the last impulse by this father-son combination and thanks to this golden input, there followed a friendship between the two fanciers which has lasted for years, and they turned the road to national success and, yes you read it right, no less than 11 ( eleven!!) national Ace pigeons KBDB in Turnhout. If we add to this the other championship titles achieved in various pigeon magazines, then most of us would have to sit down to recover from such sporting violence...
It is then not surprising that these sympathetic people have built up a stock of good pigeons, strong pigeons and in the end this is what wins wars...when the mention is made on the pedigree cards that it is once again a bird out a national Ace pigeon KBDB, then it is no surprise that these champions are in demand both at home and abroad.
They have 20 widowers, 25 breeding couples and 60 youngsters for own use.
A plain commercial mixture is given, without too much other tralala and medically they pay a visit to close friend, dr MARIEN, which also means that they don’t do anything they don’t have to....
Where they used to race Noyon (238km) for the last few years they concentrate on Quiévrain (130km) and I won’t bother you with lengthy results from the past few years, I will limit myself to the last 2 competitions of this season. If you have read them, then you will have also seen the results for the rest of the season as it is almost the same every week.
After a very nice chat with these very sympathetic and friendly people I drove home convinced that I would soon be visiting them again soon, even if it is only to hold the “vliegmachien” again, isn’t that right Daniel?
Uits
Result 10/4 698 o.b.: 1 2 6 7 35 (5 entered!!) 1006 yearlings: 1 2 3 4 5 6 11 12 13 15 20 21 25 27 34 41 77 etc..(20/20!)
Result 17/4 530 o.b.: 4 5 6 ( 1st 2nd 3rd nominated!!) 70 128 (5 entered) 783 yearlings: 2 3 4 5 6 9 10 11 18 25 49 51 114 116 118 etc..(18/20
Talk about a marvellous start...you deserve and congratulations once again!!
