INJON-VANRIE – BEERNEM
1st NATIONAL GUERET 5,235 OLD – FASTEST AGAINST 13,597b.
Season 2018 isn’t an easy season…nearly every national race was one in very hard circumstances with a North to North-Eastern wind. The weekend of the national Gueret race the weather gods made it even worse by setting the temperatures above 30°C. This would have his effect on the number of participating pigeons. Exactly 13,597 old and year birds were send to the realising point in Gueret and the fastest of all these Gueret races was the cock from tandem Injon-Vanrie out of Beernem, West-Flanders.
Injon-Vanrie stands for Peter Injon and Isabel Vanrie who form together with their 2 children Amber and Aaron a nice family. Despite the busy family live, pigeon sport is very central in this family. Peter is the one that takes the major part of the care onto his account, but also the family has to live its life . Their two children go to school, have to make homework, also have their own hobby’s, …so it takes a lot of effort from every one when they want to be able to practise pigeon sport and they seem to manage very well. So it is fantastic that this pigeon family get the attention they deserve and then even with a national victory.
CLASSIC WIDOWHOOD
The colony exists out of 12 breeding couples, 25 widow cocks and about 70 youngsters. The focus is on the long distance and extreme long distance. Also the national races for the youngsters are being planned in, especially the young hens are being prepared for this. Their loft exists out of 80% pigeons from Julien Vaneenoo (Wingene) and the other 20% is being formed by pigeons from Luc Van Hoecke (Oedelem), Koen Wildemauwe (Beernem), Dirk Martens (Deinze), Van Landuyt Antoine (Vinkt).
The old pigeons are being raced on the classic widowhood and have a winter breeding each year. They don’t have a second coupling before the season. In March and April the pigeons make their first training kilometres without that their hen is being showed. The first time ‘Madame’ is waiting is at home coming from Clermont. If the race isn’t a national one, the hen isn’t shown at basketing. Before a national race they can cuddle their hen for a few minutes.
In a matter of feeding the Black Label-mixtures from Versele-Laga are on the menu. ‘Gerry Plus I.C.’ and ‘Champion Plus I.C.’ are the main ingredients and beside this they work with ‘Energy Plus I.C.’, corn and other fine seeds to feed up the pigeons towards the races. Off course they also work with a range of natural products. Peter has his own herb garden with fresh herbs like for example mint, sage,…where he makes use of with a lot of eager.
The youngster’s game is being raced with the necessary ambition. The youngsters are being darkened until half of May and are being enlightened as from the longest day of the year. The youngsters only are being trained when the darkening is finished. In the past they suffered large amounts of losses when training the youngsters who have been darkened until June, that’s why the option to shorten it with one month. The young cocks get maximum one national race on their program, the hens can go on a national race up to four times. They are also a few late youngsters on the loft and they all race the Round of Belgium in September. Due to the different directions they are being released, the youngster can build up the necessary experience.
BACK TO THE YOUNGSTERS LOFT
And now we arrived to the national Gueret winner. “Lucas” is his name. He is a late cock from 2016 and is together with a few other 18-month old cocks on a separate department. As a youngster he never saw the inside of a basket and as a year bird he raced 2 x 101km, 2 x 208km, 2 x 330km and 1 x 495km.
As motivation for the national Gueret, Peter got the luminous idea to place them on the loft where they were as a young bird. During 2 hours they could do whatever they wanted and apparently it should have been very tough as when Peter opened the door he saw that the nest dish which was still in the box of the later national winner was on the floor. Peter doesn’t know exactly what happened, but ‘Lucas’ must have gotten his motivation out of this to race home as hell !
Peter and Isabelle… a big congratulation from the entire Herbots team.
Loft
Winner
