Cor
de Heijde Of The Netherlands
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Cor de Heijde raced into Made, the Netherlands,
and for decades scored at the distance, being
one of their top pigeoners. He was a flyer who
was influenced by Piet de Weerd, a pigeonologist
who was known world wide. Since their first meeting
when Cor was twenty years old he gathered what
can only be described as an encyclopaedia of pigeon
sport knowledge from De Weerd, which he decided
to utilize on his own behalf in the sport. Setting
his sight on the long distance races of Holland
and Europe.
In
the early 1990s de Heijde went to Zegge and contacted
Piet Lazeroms, who was one of the greats of modern
distance flyers whose base were of the Aarden
strain. There our subject bought eight old birds
from Lazeroms breeding stud, one of which was
NL 84 1870149, a dark cock whom the new owner
named De Klapper. An act of shrewdness or a touch
of the green for within a few years the children
of this cock were finishing within the top 50
places of national races. In time de Heijde travelled
to Belgium and purchased from John Lambrechts
a bird which he called Old Lambrechts. This pigeon
was a wonderful racer and breeder who in turn
for its new owner bred birds to win at the distance.
Even today the pedigrees of this family includes
references to Old Lambrechts. It should be noted
however that the number one as a breeder was the
Klapper.
In
the pedigree of the Klapper there is De 500 on
the sire's side with the great Dolle on the dam's
side. Thus the best of bloodlines of the Steenbergen
dynasty lies at the base of the de Heijdes. To
add to that base was a daughter of the Klapper
who was a great racer and flyer known as Sint
Vincentduif who, amongst other great results,
scored 26th and 44th Nationals from St.Vincent.
Thus the reason for the name.
Within
a relatively short period of time the family of
Cor de Heijde became a worthy part of Europe's
long distance racing community. Reflecting the
importance of starting with the right stock if
one desired to specialize at the long and marathon
distances. Which our subject obviously did. As
a result in the Internationals the loft was scoring
37th Perpignan, 38th Dax, 55th Barcelona. 74 Marseille
and 90th Marseille. Whereas the results at National
level included 1st Bordeaux, 3rd Dax, 8th Perpignan,
14th St.Vincent and so on. Also Cor de Heijde
won the prestigious and coveted Europe Cup in
1999.
All
of this phenomenal success, however, was achieved
inspite of the fact that in 1998 his lofts were
broken into and the best of his pigeons including
the Klapper and Sint Vincentduif were stolen.
The criminal or criminals took over 40 of the
lofts best and such an evil deed was enough to
devastate any person but not Cor de Heijde, for
this great fancier continued with what was left
and has not lost his place amongst the elite of
Europe's best flyers. Of such is the man made.
by: Liam O Comain
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