Our pigeon season has different classic races, but only one can be the flight out of the flights. Everybody looks forward for it for weeks, and everybody has a little hope set on it. ‘It should work out this once’, ‘They train very well’, ‘They are better as last year’. But Barcelona, the race out of the races, can’t be tamed this easily. Wind, weather, temperature,…they take care each time again of an unpredictable course. With an edition where temperatures went above the 30°C, a wind that was in their disadvantage, the pigeons left Barcelona and headed home. Sunday morning everybody was waiting nervously as they stayed behind for a long time, much longer as expected. In the end the first pigeons got home only by noon. 
Belgium had to wait until 14h36m21s, this was the time that the pigeon from Marc Cooman got home. In Uitbergen it was nervously waiting, with a speed of 770m/m the minutes went by very slowly. In the end, the others were all too late to beat this one and the bottles were being corked at Marc Cooman’s house. Even the entire village went crazy immediately. News got around very quick and everybody wanted to congratulate the winner.

‘Den Barca’

The winner of Marc, ‘Den Barca’ (4084987/12), is a wonderful red chequered cock. It was already his third trip to the Spanish coast. In 2015 he got home as the 23rd out of 192 pigeons locally and in 2016 he came home as the 10th out of 211 pigeons. Nationally it meant twice around the 500th national. Marc was honest about it, this pigeon only wins a prize on Barcelona. Until the age of 3, the palmaris of this one didn’t look impressive. But with its result in 2017, he shows that he is made for the real though work. Maybe good to know that ‘Den Barca’ had to race a very hard Brive 3 weeks before basketing. .

The winner looked extremely fresh when we could admire him. The signs of thunderstorms was still to see on his nose, but he wasn’t impressed at all of the other circumstances. It was immediately clear what the stimulus of this cock was. He was very attached to his box. At basketing Marc enlightened this even more by bringing his hen onto the loft together with some straw. His experience together with the urge to get home took care of an impressive result.

His pedigree shows Dutch long distance blood. Marc doesn’t know that much about the father (1293560/09NL). It was a pigeon from G. Van de Kruk, a Dutch where he never knew off which was his inheritage. The mother is from the noble strain of Jan Theelen  (3939509/09NL). Marc got her at Frans Van den Heuvels’ loft. Father is the ‘Rode Diamant’, the mother is an inbred to ‘Marathon’. A strange story by the way. Marc went to Frans to get some hens. He got to see the mother of ‘Den Barca’, but didn’t want to take her at first. When Marc had made his choice between the other hens, Frans gave him this hen for free. Frans gave him this wise advice: ‘ Try it for three years, you will breed good ones out of her for sure.’ And yes, the ‘good one’ that came out of her is one even Marc couldn’t have dreamt off…

Long Distance fancier with a small colony

The colony of Marc can be called very small for a long distance fancier. With only six old birds and no year birds in his racing team there isn’t much space to get it wrong. Marc also has about 20 youngsters. This makes it right away clear that winning is something everybody can. A top pigeon, the right flight, the perfect circumstances (for this pigeon) and a bit of luck that there isn’t one better that day. The perfect mix.

Caring

Marc did everything within his power to get his pigeons in perfect shape to the start of the race. The pigeons get ‘Premium Power Non Stop’ from Van Robaeys to eat. He makes the choice not to feed the pigeons extra before basketing. He does uses products from Herbots like ‘Zell Oxygen’, ‘4 oils’ and ‘Optimix’. Also ‘Avipharm’ from Rhonfried is in the range of the side products. The last three days before basketing he used ‘Aminovit’ (Herbots). The pigeons got a cure before the beginning of the season and it wasn’t necessary to repeat this. At basketing they all got a trichomoniases pill and were ready for being basketed.

Everybody can win!

Marc Cooman is a well-deserved winner of one of the hardest Barcelona editions ever in history. ‘Den Barca’ took care of this great honour. This shows that pigeon sport is there for everybody. Small fanciers next to big fanciers, they all have the chance to win. They all have their right for a piece of fame and honour. Marc realizes very well that repeating this is something that is quite impossible, but he will never forget how this pigeon landed on the shelf. A moment that you don’t realize as fancier what is right and what is left, a total delirium. Searching for a right description is impossible, but one thing is clear. It puts your world upside down for a moment. The Herbots- and LCB-team are very pleased to congratulate this winner. Off course we also hope that the other magnificent Barcelona racers make it home safely. One thing remains clear: Barcelona will stay unpredictable for ever….

B12-4084987 : 1st NATIONAL BARCELONA (B) 7,944b.

Kristof Carpentier