Michel Dubois with one of his crack pigeon (photo: Benoît Cailliez).
Michel Dubois is racing like a true champion since many years but he was put under the international spotlights in 2015 thanks to his famous ''Invictus'' who became that year the Best European Pigeon on the marathon races (3 prizes). Thanks to this performance, the name of Michel Dubois became a household even outside France and he is now respected in the whole Europe for his performances. This pigeon won 3x top 21 international at the age of 3, 'Invictus' was then walking on the footsteps of another world famous french pigeon: the 'Super Ben' from Robert Ben. At the time, it wasn't a surprise that he draw the attention of two big belgian champions: Sebastien Casaert & Joost De Smeyter directly noticed the potential of this pigeon and brought back this crack in Belgium before he was probably sold abroad. Since then, it is finally Hugo Batenburg who now owns it in partnership with the PEC.
'Invictus', now owned by Batenburg-Van de Merwe/PEC.
This to be said that now, all the european gotha is striving to get these marathon ace pigeons bred & raced in France, something that wasn't really the case a few years ago. The international races lead the french fanciers to be put more and more under the spotlights, mostly thanks to some charismastic fanciers whose Michel Dubois is probably one of the leaders.
The 2018 season
It is useless to remind how hard was the season in 2018, probably one of the hardest of the history. Everybody is still thinking about the painful conditions that our pigeons needed to face to come home. This is even more true if you think about the pigeons who had to fly the extreme long distance races, flying all day long under a blazing sun.
It seems that the pigeons from Michel Dubois were especially bred to fly under this type of conditions as their results speaks for themselves. On the race of Agen especially, one of the hardest race of the last racing season, the racing team of Dubois booked an astonishing performance as no less than 6 pigeons were classified into the top 75 international, and this with only 12 pigeons basketted!
European Ace Pigeon ('La Colombe Joyeuse')
Michel Dubois will probably win the title of 1st European Ace Pigeon organized by ''La Colombe Joyeuse'' (under reserve). However, we should bring some explanations regarding to this title as several rankings have been published since the end of the season and this can be sometimes confusing. In fact, the pigeons that you on the first places of these rankings are not always the same one from a ranking to another.
The ranking organized by ''La Colombe Joyeuse'' can however be considered as the official and the most prestigious one simply because it is organized for ages by this organisation.
And this ranking differs from the other ones because it has a caracteristic that is really specific to it: it takes into account the distances flew on each races.
Thus, is declared winner of this ranking the pigeon who achieves the best coefficient on 3 races of the choice of the 5 following international races: Pau, Barcelona, St-Vincent, Marseille & Perpignan. The coefficient is calculated as follows: (place won x 1000) divided by (number of pigeons x distance). This gives quite different results, especially because of the importance given to the distance. In these conditions, the new crack of Michel Dubois christened 'Aristo' is the big winner!
- 'Aristo' (FR14-396677)
3. Pau national - 3.830 p. '18 8. Internat - 11.714 p. 30. St-Vincent nat - 3.076 p. '18 43. Internat - 9.548 p. 96. Perpignan nat - 3.477 p. '18 321. Internat - 12.339 p. 2017: 105. St-Vincent nat - 4.116 p. '17 251. Internat - 11.515 p.
Also won a prize on Pau in 2017.
Father: 'Pursang' (FR09-196494), it is a son of 'Zezette', grandmother (father side) of 'Invictus'. This hen is bred from the line of the Hovaere that we can also find back on the blood of the Supercrack Gruson from the Moulin Rouge Breeding Stud.
Mother: 'The Jellema' (NL07-1187406), basic breeding hen of the loft and already mother of 'Invictus', 1st European Ace Marathon 2015. This Jellema hen is a granddaughter of two of the most emblematic pigeons from Jellema, being 'Orion' and 'Saffier', two real pillars of the Jellema loft as you can find them in the pedigree of almost all the current toppers of this dutch wonderful loft.
Click here to check his pedigree.
If you take a look at the pedigrees of 'Aristo' and 'Invictus', you will probably quickly noticed that they were bred from the same mother but also that they both come out of the same blood crossing, so the basis Hovaere x Jellema. Michel Dubois definately prooved he was a very smart breeder.
'La Jellema', a real hen with golden eggs
'The Jellema' (photo: Benoît Guillaume).
We already wrote it previously in our report: the two ace pigeons from Michel Dubois are bred from the same mother, a hen from Jelle Jellema.
Of course, this hen can be considered as a real golden eggs hen as she really had a huge impact on the colony of Michel Dubois. In addition than 'Aristo' & 'Invictus', she is also mother or grandmother of the following pigeons:
- 'Invictus' -> 1st European Ace ELD 2015 (son)
- 'Aristo' -> 1st European Ace ELD 2018 - La Colombe Joyeuse (son)
- 'Prince' -> in 2018 3/3 with a.o. 147th Pau 11.714 p. & 757th Perpignan 12.339 p. (son)
- '458/16' -> 6th Agen International 13.325 p. (grandmother)
- '916/16' -> 74th Agen International 13.325 p. (grandmother)
... and the list goes on!
Results 2018
If you take a look at the results booked on the internatioal races in 2018, you will notice that Michel Dubois won a total of 44 prizes from 63 pigeons basketted with 26x per 10 and no less than 10x top 100 international. On the 44 prizes booked, 13 were won by direct descendants of the Jelle Jellema pigeons (on a total of 14 basketted). It says a lot about the impact of the Jellema pigeons into the stock of Michel Dubois, as he underline it himself.
23/06 Pau National - 3.830 p. : 3, 52, 114, 173, 210, 427, 466, 625 (8/10) 23/06 Pau International - 11.714 p. : 8, 64, 147, 224, 287, 1351, 1546, 2176 (8/10) 29/06 Agen National - 2.043 p. : 6, 7, 9, 33, 39, 49, 165, 191, 212, 306, 406 (11/12) 29/06 Agen International - 13.325 p. : 6, 7, 11, 46, 53, 74, 1223, 1484, 1615, ... (11/12) 07/07 Barcelone National - 2.904 p. : 32, 143, 187, 228, 354, 396, 422, 423 (8/17) 07/07 Barcelone International - 15.700 p. : 150, 702, 865, 1030, 1564, ... (9/17) 13/07 St-Vincent National - 3.076 p. : 30, 71, 165, 238, 329, 404, 559, 567, 576, ... (11/14) 13/07 St-Vincent International - 9.544 p. : 43, 97, 230, 321, 452, 696, ... (11/14) 03/08 Perpignan International - 12.339 p. : 216, 321, 530, 757, ... (5/10)
We would like to congratulate Michel Dubois for his performances and we already think about the next appointment... maybe for his coming first international victory.