Comb. Smeets-Penris, Urmond grabs gold at national Marseille with their 'Summertime Pie'

Today, the Marseille international race has a beautiful unloading site at the on-site hippodrome. Hippodrome is a fancy word for a horse racing track like Duindigt in Wassenaar was the most famous track in our country for a long time. The Marseille race flight is the easternmost release point on the international pigeon racing calendar and that gives other differences in terms of flight distances from west to east. South Limburg has by far the shortest flight distances on Marseille and we are talking about 850 km while Zeeuws-Vlaanderen has 900 km 'standing' for Marseille. On flights like Pau and St Vincent that difference is smaller but vice versa. Now we have to say that Marseille 2023 was able to be raced under beautiful weather conditions. Pigeons did face a northwest wind but it turned more to the west 'further on'. A favourable flight route more along the coastline seemed out of the question and the eastern side seemed to have the most favourable papers beforehand. But with flying over long distances, one always has to 'build in' a certain reserve because a lot can happen along the way and forecasting always remains difficult. But the pigeons did not face very high temperatures or rain zones. Lots of sunshine and regular strips of cloud. No rain showers as we did in the Netherlands on that July 21 during the day. What speeds would the pigeons achieve that would be reported first? And where would they 'fall'? With that westerly wind, would Germany now also come into focus again? In the last three years, the international winner was flagged off successively at 1053, 1105 and 1141mph. After a fine release at 7 a.m., the first pigeons were clocked before 6 p.m. and not as often in France but in the German Saarland at 17.47 at 688 km and in the extreme south-east of Belgium at 17.55 at 701 km and at 17.59 at 702 km. Speeds of 1072 and 1063 m.p.m. came out. So east side after all. Not very much later two French reports came in and those fanciers are significantly further west and north of Laon. At 18.11hrs they clocked at 727km and the faster one was a pigeon from Frank Menez from Voyenne who saw his pigeon arrive at 729km at 18.06 and lead the report list at 1095mph. Could the west be catching pigeons early after all? It later turned out not to be the case. With 3122 pigeons, France had more pigeons than Belgium and most of them will have been basketed from the northwest corner of France. 

 First Dutch pigeon
And then it was waiting for the first Dutch Marseille pigeon. From South Limburg could the first notification be expected or would there really be a surprise out of the top hat with, for example, the first notification from Hoogerheide or Deurne? At one point, South Limburg could no longer beat the 1095 m.p.m. of the French pigeon but it did not make much difference when the first notification appeared on the 'boards'. The comb. Smeets-Penris from Urmond clocked at 20.23 at 860 km. Their hen was assigned a speed of 1070 m.p.m. And after that first report, the following came smoothly. Pierre Arts turned at Kerkrade at 20.24 and Marc Hendriks at 20.28 in Eys. At 20.29 Smeets-Penris clocked again but now on the Smeets-Penris loft in Stein and there they are a good 2 km shorter than in Urmond and a speed of 1060 m.p.m. was assigned to that hen. For now, good for gold and silver in the Netherlands. And as it is always said that the Rhine enters our country at Lobith so we can now say that the Marseille pigeons entered our country in South Limburg. A long string of South Limburg pigeons showed up on the reporting line followed by pigeons from Central Limburg. The first pigeon from 'outside' was from H. van Venrooij jr. from Deurne at 916 km which eventually went on to win the 14th national. A big surprise was the notification at 22.17 from comb. Heikamp-van Doorn from Zetten in Gelderland at 963 km. Their pigeon came to a speed of 1051 m.p.m., which later turned out to be good for 4th national


Neutralisation time
On Marseille, the international neutralisation time ran from 22.44 to 5.25 in the morning and this also applies to the ZLU national competition. On the NPO flights, the neutralisation time ran from 10.17pm to 5.16am, which is significantly shorter. After the neutralisation time entered, pigeons with distances above 1000 km could always beat the speed of the pigeon from Smeets-Penris from Urmond and as high as 1070 m.p.m. But was that realistic or possible? Night flying at such lower speeds? Well, it was very clear on Friday night and even cloudless in Limburg. And the miracle man from Nijverdal managed to claim a leading role for himself again by clocking a pigeon at 00.10 at 1013 km and at an even greater flying distance of almost 1039 km, Rienks Lonsian from Nieuwleusen also 'turned' a pigeon within the neutralisation time at 5.16. Speeds of 1073 m.p.m. for Jellema and of 1100 m.p.m. for Lonsain make them 'land' in places 4 and 1 on the international reporting list. An international win for Rienks Lonsain. Nationally, however, since 2018, additional rules apply to pigeons clocked in neutralisation time on morning dispatches. If one of those pigeons is faster than the fastest pigeon clocked before the neutralisation time entered then the NFO18 rules start to count. The pigeons clocked in the neutralisation time are then allocated extra flight time for the time they 'flew on' in neutralisation. Jellema's pigeon was clocked 1 hour and 26 minutes after entering the NT and gets about 47 per cent as extra 'flight time' for that. Rieks Lonsain's pigeon was clocked 6 hours and 32 minutes after entering the NT and gets about 21 per cent (of the maximum of 6 hours) as extra flight time for that. All this according to the rules as laid down by the NPO meeting through NFO18 and also applicable to ZLU flights. For Rieks Lonsain, this means that his pigeon is not assigned 1100 m.p.m. as speed but 1019 m.p.m. and Jelle Jellema's pigeon 'drops' from 1073 to 1029 m.p.m. 
Smeets-Penris
In the long distance, Robin Smeets and his (step)father Piet Penris in Urmond have certainly made a flying start after they decided to switch totally to the long distance in 2018. In 2018, they flew the 2nd nat. and int. Marseille with their 'Benny Batman' and their 'Avatar was crowned second best Barcelona fancier over 3 years that year with consecutive national prizes 51, 115 and 227. In 2017, Robin and Pete were already 4th at the ZLU National Marathon and one cannot become that with late counting prize birds. Without 'Avatar', Barcelona 2019 became a grandiose success, with 3 along they won prizes 27, 53 and 80 nationally. Unprecedented such a result with 3 along! Robin Smeets is 35 years old and started pigeon racing at a very young age in his parents' yard. There were a number of show pigeons on the farm and at a certain moment a homing pigeon joined them and returned home very quickly if released elsewhere. This fascinated Robin immensely and he wanted more homing pigeons and we are now talking about 1999 when Robin was about 11 years old. Before too long there was a team of racing pigeons built up via youngsters from fanciers in the club and father Piet became a companion in pigeon racing. Piet's father was himself a pigeon fancier for a long time. Under the name Smeets-Penris started participating in the races and the programme races became the goal. The big work was also found attractive and other pigeons came later for that. Robin Smeets has been living in Stein since 2009. First in the Nieuwdorp district and at the end of 2018 he moved with his Brenda and their children to the 'old part' of Stein and the house there has more space for pigeon racing. In 2019, they bred and in 2020 played for the first year with yearlings in the long distance from Stein.


Summertime Pie

 

For Marseille, 17 pigeons were basketed from Piet and Robin's loft in Urmonds and 14 pigeons from Robin's loft in Stein. The same evening Piet got pigeons through at 21.34 and 22.23 after the winner at 20.23. The next morning, pigeons were clocked at 6.06, 6.38, 6.53 and 7.06. In Stein, one pigeon came through the same day and won silver and the next morning was clocked at 5.21, 6.06, 6.21 and 6.33. This year so far, the combination had not been so successful in Urmond. For the first year there, everything was played on total widowhood. While other years the pigeons were put on nest after Agen. The winner is the NL2021-1415493 and Piet had already given her the name 'Summertime'. After this national victory, Piet Penris decided to add his father's name to the winner's name and so we arrive at 'Summertime Pie'. Robin never knew his grandfather as he was not allowed to get too old but Pie's sons 'sponsored' their father to enable more in pigeon racing for him. The winner was quite good as a yearling as she won two good prizes last year with the 728th Agen and 553rd Narbonne national. If we then see that this was against respectively 6174 and 6260 pigeons, these are certainly not late prizes. Last year she went on widowhood to Agen and on nest to Narbonne. 

 

Nothing in the eye
It was Robin's mother who called her son when Piet had managed to clock his 'Summertime Pie'. Piet did not follow everything very closely put on the internet in terms of reports and did not yet know that no Dutch pigeons had been reported yet. Mother called and said, "We have one". Robin immediately understood that this had to be an early one because there were no reports yet. And that might just end up with a crystal vase from the ZLU! Now one for his father while he himself with the 18th Pau and the 15th Agen (old) had already managed to win two in Stein. Overjoyed Robin was for his father and suddenly he could exclaim: "Here's one too!". And then not much later, father and son were on top of the reporting list and it would stay that way! Gold and silver for the Smeets-Penris tandem. Robin also picked up a hen and it was his NL20-1723491 which had already won the 15th Agen national this year and last year she was even earlier from that flight with the 10th national. And so now the 2nd national Marseille. And then three particularly early prizes from 'Nika 91' which Robin named after his daughter. She left with a large 16-day-old youngster and on the day of basketing laid her second egg. She was bred by Piet and Robin from a son of their ' Benny Batman' which was then paired against a daughter of the 'Streepke' of fellow townsman Lei Martens. This hen was obtained from Lei in 2015 and after Lei Martens sold everything total he asked Piet and Robin if he could borrow her. And they decided to give her back to Lei because they themselves had also gotten her for free and for nothing. The mother of 'Nika 91' is a half-sister of 'Avatar' of 2013 who was 2nd best Barcelona bird in 2018. And the father of Avatar was from 2004 and came directly from the Kuyper brothers from Neer. In 2004, Robin got four youngsters pigeons from the brothers as a very young guest (16 years old) and they have been very successful with them in breeding. Robin says: "Only later and in hindsight do you realise how good those pigeons were in breeding''. The mother of 'Avatar' is a Jellemaduivin that belonged to the comb. Verbaandert-Habraken from Veldhoven to Urmond.

Origin
Winner 'Summertime Pie' is a full daughter of 'Benny Batman' and this clapper flew 2nd nat. and int. Marseille in 2018. The two years before that, it also hit Marseille every time and in 2017 it arrived in pitch darkness and friend Ben van Es had to shine the torch to guide it in. Because he arrived like a bat in the dark, he was named Batman and Benny refers to Ben van Es. This cock has as father a cock from Huub Nijsten from Geulle and his mother flew the 3rd national Bordeaux at the ZLU as a yearling in 2011 and that was the ZLU debut of Piet Penris and Robin Smeets. She was bred from a Kuypers cock and an Eijerkamp hen. The mother of 'Summertime Pie' was bought at the total sale of H. Wijnands and son from Maastricht. After the death of his parents, Roger left the Ringhoeve and just over the border at a new address in Vroenhoven, he is making a restart under the same racing name. This mother is a direct daughter of the 'Light 05' which won 1st ace ZLU at WHZB in 2013. She was already of age when purchased via Pipa but she will not have aged for nothing was reasoned Piet and Robin. 
 

Game

The racing team in Urmond was rapped by Robin with his own pigeons on the Friday before basketing for a flight of about 70 km and after returning home the sexes were allowed to stay together. Also on the following Sunday, Piet left his racers together for a short time before they were basketed for Marseille the day after. This season in Urmond they started with about 40 racing couples sitting in two departments with respectively 25 and 19 breeding boxes. Many yearlings were in the flight team and also youngsters from 2022 that did not see the basket in their year of birth. And on the pre-flight and long distance flights, Pete lost a large percentage of his flight team. Almost half are now absent and that despite all the care Piet takes of his pigeons. Father and son play almost purely the ZLU flights and also basketed on Limoges and Bordeaux (morning release) of the division this year. On St Vincent the week before it went better with 2 out of 6 in the prizes and 3 pigeons just too late at a price division 1 to 4 while Robin himself did not play a prize. The men regularly have their pigeons checked by Vincent Schroeder in Kerkrade. Robin also regularly questions certainties in pigeon racing. For instance, he makes his nestlings train compulsorily in the evening and the first year they trained sky-high but this year that is less and he often has to let the flag fly again. But don't the pigeons fall back on the loft quickly because they have a great urge to their nest and isn't that a very good sign? For example, Robin has a hen that slips back in at lightning speed when the loft door is opened when let out, and nothing seems to be able to stop her doing so. And 'Summertime Pie' was still on 6 old pegs when basketing while Robin's hen still had 8 old pegs. They paired at the end of February and the pairs raised a young while the sexes were separated in time. With Robin, the racers were trained separately and with Piet, after breeding, widowhood started immediately for both sexes. Yes, 'Summertime Pie' and 'Nika 91' gave the Smeets-Penris family an incredible weekend of pigeon sport. Pigeon sport history and stories have been written that will never disappear from the (pigeon sport) memory and will often be discussed by the protagonists and always with a big smile on the face!

Ad van Gils