THE MAKING OF CHAMPIONS: THE ART OF BREEDING
The smart and fast racing pigeons of today are a far cry from their ancestors centuries ago. While homing pigeons are known to have the instinct to “go home” with some having been trained to send messages, they do not do so in fast or clever, stubborn ways that the modern racing pigeons do: soaring through the wind at a speed of 100 to 160 kilometers per hour, flying straight, and going home to their loft within 12 hours, even from 1000
kilometers away.
These racing pigeons are a product of continuous breeding by pigeon fanciers who saw the need to develop these birds into winged athletes capable of flying extreme long distances at a short amount of time.
While early modern racing pigeons were developed through the efforts of legendary pigeon racers Henri Janssen and sons Louis and Jef of Arendonk, Belgium (giving rise to the Janssen-arendonk pigeons), and Stichelbaut Alois (of the Stichelbaut strain of pigeons), it was ultimately the persevering efforts of the renowned pigeon journalist Piet de Weerd, otherwise known as Pigeon Professor, which made a big headway in the creation of the modern day “overnight long-distance” pigeons.
De Weerd’s partnership with several breeders and pigeon racers was the key in this development. Using knowledge gained from personal experience and tapping into winningest pigeons at the time, the Pigeon Professor chose birds based on body conformation, pigeon vitality, excellent racing records, and a certain stubborn attitude he called “pigeon mordant”. Eventually, De Weerd engineered pigeon bloodlines that became the foundation of modern overnight long distance pigeons: Jan Aarden and Maurice Delbar strains, Josef Vandenbroucke’s Didi Line, and later, Etienne de Vos’ “Kleine Didi”, the last two being the result of several years of selection and inbreeding.