Dirk Martens (Deinze) strikes on Pau, 1st Prov. East Flanders (4th Nat. against 3,368 pigeons)

Deinze - Dirk Martens from Deinze won the first provincial place East Flanders on the national flight from Pau. His hen, BE21-4226045, better known as "SilverSonja", triumphed against 939 pigeons and finished national in an impressive fourth place against 3,368 pigeons.

"SilverSonja", a late youngster born in August 2021, underwent a patient development. As a late youngster she was not trained, but as a yearling she participated in races up to 400 km. At the age of two, she showed her potential by ranking in the prizes in races from Vierzon, Bourges, Agen and Saint-Vincent. "I had a good eye on her because she always came home particularly fresh and driven," Martens said.

The name "SilverSonja" was not chosen by chance. She refers to her illustrious sister on her father's side, "SuperSonja", who finished no less than six times in the top 150 nationally between 2018 and 2020 and was named the best Belgian pigeon in six races. The mother of "Silversonja" is a half-sister to Alex Rans' "Zevlakov". "Zevlakov" himself was a super flyer who won 1st World Best Pigeon 2020 and 3rd Nat. ace pigeon Marathon KBDB, among others, and he is also the father of "Chadli" (2nd Olympiad pigeon Marathon 2022 (Romania),3rd National ace pigeon Marathon yearling 2020 (ranking),...) which was sold this year on Alex Rans' PBids at Herbots.

For the flight from Pau, "SilverSonja" was basketed while breeding on a two-day-old youngster. Her preparation was intensive, with weekly flights from the first week of April up to Vierzon on 18 May. She was then put on nest and flew another Clermont (200 km) at 10 days of incubation.

"I am extremely proud of this achievement," said a proud Martens. "But I am even more proud of the performance of the entire team." And rightly so, because apart from SilverSonja's national fourth place, his other pigeons also achieved impressive results: 26th (second basketed), 37th (first basketed), 43rd, 66th, 276th, 362nd, 370th, 429th and 522nd national places. In total, 10 of the 14 pigeons deployed came in the prizes.

Credit where credit is due, the excellent performances of both "SilverSonja" and the rest of his team underline the quality of the pigeons and the careful training of Dirk Martens.

Dirk, congratulations from the entire Herbots team!

Maarten Herbots