Yvan Haelters (Maarkedal) puts Perpignan 2023 to his hand

Preference for a particular race ? It's like with top athletes where they apparently can or want to perform better on one race than another. Without any discussion, Yvan's race from Perpignan suits him and his pigeons very well.
Several times in the past, this race became his "moment de gloire" of his season in the very long distance.
It is nice to be with Marie-Rose and Yvan. Both breathe pigeons alongside their families. They plan to move to Yvan's parental home, within walking distance of their current home, which already houses all their racing pigeons. The lofts were recently built-renovated and everything is spic and span. Spacious lofts, very well organised, lots of open space, in short the ideal biotope to enjoy their hobby.
Yvan likes to play with pigeons and that on almost all distances. In the past, he already won many honours and fame in long-distance and very long-distance races, but he also has a loft with which he competes in middle-distance and very long-distance races. In short, during the pigeon season there is full throttle with races from 250 km to 1,100 km...and great results are achieved on all distances.

It was bang on Perpignan
A total of 14 pigeons were basketed for Perpignan 2023, 10 hens on nest and 4 cocks on widowhood. Perpignan was not a flight for pancakes. It was a flight with a minute speed for the top birds of just over 1,000 metres per minute. In Belgium, 14 pigeons reached their loft on the day of release.
At 21.35 hrs the first pigeon arrived at Yvan's home in Nukerke and it was clear that this would be a very early one, achieving the highest speed of the pigeons that reached their loft on the same day. It was pinch-hitting until the next day to see whether or not the pigeons that reached their loft early in the morning would make a higher speed. In Essen and in Maaseik two pigeons were bested that would even slightly exceed this speed and so it eventually became a 3rd national.
But what followed afterwards was a real festival of pigeons that came through very smoothly. This resulted in a paternoster of top prizes and so an excellent result on Perpignan was achieved:

Club 74b.: 1-4-5-7-8-9-10-11-13-14-23 (11/14)
Provinciaal 1.334d: 1-23-26-33-44-45-57-77-86-123-278 (11/14)
Nationaal 5.722d: 3-84-94-109-145-153-206-250-280-430-951 (11/14)

It was Elza BE19-4023305 who shocked everyone with her early arrival. This beautiful blue hen had entered the basket as 6th signed and proved she has a lot of talent to fly top on the heaviest flights. 

Her origin is one with 5 stars. It is no secret that Yvan has a sublime breeding loft with pigeons for the heavy long distance. Her father is the Blue Witpen Joost (De Smeyter - Restiaen) and is bred from the line of the famous Narbonne 1 and Jan Ernest's Armstrong. Her is mother is a granddaughter of Mila 4th national Perpignan and also from the bloodline of Jan Ernest's Teletext. You can hardly forge them any better. Along mother's side, she is strongly related to the 1st national ace heavy long distance 2022 at Wed. Delbar-Ravens from Kluisbergen.
Elza delivered this performance on 1st brood of the year and brooded for about 10 days. This is normally not the position in which Yvan prefers to basket them but due to circumstances with her cock, this was in a different way. Just another proof that pigeon racing is not an exact science. Before that she had flown Bergerac and also Agen already. Elza is a late breeding from 2019. In 2020, she was basketed five times on short France flights. In 2021, she flew up to Perigueux. In 2022, she was transferred to the playing hens loft to be used in full.

 

Credit to this hen for putting up such a performance. What followed was a recital of top prizes with as many as 10 out of 14 pigeons per 10 winning nationally. 
How do you prepare a top team for Perpignan ?
Yvan plays many pigeons on many distances. To sum up, the cocks are played on classic widowhood (and this both in middle-distance, heavy middle-distance and long-distance). The long-distance and very long-distance hens are normally played on a nest.
The hens do not breed before the start of the season. They stay in the racing loft on shelves during the winter period. During this rest period they are fed once a day with a light feed (50 % barley, 50 % sport) and during the day they sometimes stay in the corridor in front of the lofts.

At this position they are also carefully reared in spring and fly some speed races, 2 x Orléans and Bourges national. Two days after Bourges, they are paired on the same loft (with cocks-home stayers that stay in the aviary during the winter period). They then stay in the loft until after laying without training. As soon as they breed, they train for about 45 minutes every day (shortly after noon). 
When Yvan is very keen and the weather is fine, he sometimes lets them do a training flight with the small basket and releases them in Peruwelz. Normally, they are then prepared for Agen with the following flight schedule viz. Pont Saint Maxence, Ecouen, Toury (each time with 1 night in the basket). 
During breeding, this racing team received a 3-day cure against tricho and 1 short cure for any respiratory problems.
During this period they are fed lightly to prevent them from gaining weight during breeding. From 3 days before basketing, they are given full tray of fly food and oil and brewer's yeast are added to the feed.
The preferred basketing position (based on strong results in the past) is normally at the end of incubation or on spiked eggs. In the past, real top performances were achieved with this. An exception is made for Barcelona, where we prefer to basket on small youngsters.
With Elza, however, it was different this year and she scored top while incubating for 10 days.

 

Some other annual traditions concerning care at Yvan are :
- October-November : all breeders 10 cure of anti paratyphoid in the drinking jar
- March : idem for the racers
- A 30+ breeding couples long-distance and very long-distance are paired mid-January
- Before each long distance race, the pigeons that will participate usually fly a training flight from Pont Saint Maxence (2 hour flight).
- The widowers' lofts are covered with straw (wheat straw). This straw makes the lofts extra cosy and also regulates the temperature. This straw is changed every 3 months.
- A pigeon in Yvan's lofts is a beautiful pigeon. The first selection is the composition of the breeding couples where pigeons with defects are not used. The result is that Yvan's pigeons are almost all very beautiful pigeons with strong performances on top.

A loft with strong references

No real news under the sun. Players who have followed Yvan for several years know that the quality drips from his breeding loft. He has never shied away from investing in quality and, conversely, many have already successfully indulged in Yvan's pigeons.

The list is endless, but we would like to single out a few very strong ones:

Jan Nobus (Knokke-Heist) : 1st national Limoges old birds 2023. Has with his Leon (1st nat zone Tulle etc)...a top pigeon on his loft whose mother is a Haelters hen (breeding line Nuna 2nd national Perpignan, 1st international hens x the strain of Marc Adam).

- Widow Delbar-Raevens : winner 1st national ace KBDB heavy long distance 2022 with Blackfire, a direct pigeon of Yvan Haelters. 

- In the past, the 1st national Tulle was also born on Yvan's lofts.
This is just a small sample of successes with pigeons coming from Yvan's strong breeding loft.
20 YEARS PERPIGNAN, who can repeat this ?
The flight from Perpignan seems to suit Yvan's pigeons very well. Either Yvan has a predilection for this flight and makes an extra effort to finish it successfully. A list of the results of the past 20 years on the Perpignan flight looks quite impressive :

 

Results Perpignan national

2004 
4086 yearlings/ 5, 42, 141, 310, 543, 805, 981 (10)

2005 
3796 yearlings/ 23, 56, 84, 184, 185, 313  (11)
7611 old birds/ 114, 451, 1366, 1890  (8)

2006 
6765 old birds / 922, 1350, 1359 (7)

2007 
5547 old birds / 377, 397, 620, 1078, 1098 (10)

2008
7603 old birds/ 6, 596, 1772, 1776 (10)

2009
7364 old birds/ 76, 92,95, 146, 1823 (10)
3841 duivinnen internationaal/ 20, 26, 27, 40, 589, (10)

2010
6257 old birds/ 31, 293,632, 633, 690, 751, 1006, 1335, 1479  (22)
3464 duivinnen internationaal/ 3, 50, 131, 133, 152, 171, 248, 386, 557, 705, 807  (22)

2011
5591 old birds / 112, 146, 191, 712, 963, 1252 (12)
3861 hens international/ 109, 134, 162, 529, 702, 879 (12)

2012
6661 old birds/ 403, 577, 600, 645,… (12)
3849 hens international / 93, 145, 152, 169, 524, 731, 813, 962  (12) 

2013
5613 old birds/ 2, 565, 568, 705, 1027, 1266 (9)
1ste international hens

2014
6248 old birds/ 4, 240, 361, 368, 636, 1290, 1360 (13)

2015
5254 old birds/ 127, 141, 501, 608, 644, 700, 809 (14)

2016
4191 old birds/ 277, 318, 330, 434, 446, 570, 714, 800 (26)

2017
4620 old birds/ 191, 203, 225, 257, 344, 430, 599, 660, 776, 863, 1092, 1153 (24)

2018
3966 old birds/6, 19, 32, 71, 80, 81, 115, 128, 316, 318, 355, 551, 794, 843, 890, 970 (26)

2019
3915 old birds/ 8, 98, 109, 149, 152, 212, 310, 353, 677, 728, 776, 961 (20)

2020
2643 old birds/ 7,17, 50, 84, 115,150, 154, 174, 183, 220, 335, 389 (16)

2021 
3901 old birds/ 119, 143, 232, 412, 418, 449, 454, 664, 777 (18)

2022
3766 old birds/ 56, 115, 154, 428, 632, 657, 675, 763 (22)

2023
5722 old birds/ 3,84, 94, 109 , 145, 153, 206, 250 , 280 , 430 , 951 (14)

Not words, but deeds, rock-hard figures on one of the queen flights in the heavy distance. On these flights it's can or can't, few alternatives are welcome. 
When we asked Yvan "until next year after Perpignan", he replied with a broad smile "we'll do everything we can, but maybe we shouldn't wait that long"...., which typifies the determination of Yvan and his family!
Congratulations on these great results from the Herbots team !

 

Geert Dhaenens