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JOS THONEby Les Parkinson"I knew that pigeons would be a determining factor in my life that I wanted to reach the top. It was a sort of burning passion ." "My greatest role model at the time was Jan Grondelaers from Opglabeek, one of Belgium's greatest champions." Information supplied by Nikolaas Gyselbrecht of www.pipa.be in conjunction with Elimar Pigeon Services
A few years ago I completed and saw published an article of Jos Thone, since that time he has continued to win at the highest level. I have brought that article out of the archives to add the latest news on the recent winnings at National level. I did write that during recent years one of the most dominant winning lofts to receive world wide fame for the high standards of racing is the Kruisstraat lofts of Jos Thone who has a fantastic record as 4 times Versele Laga World Champion. That has not changed as can be seen from the heading. When I started the article the thought crossed my mind of how to get the best information on Jos and to put the best article over I was given permission if required to use extractions from the Jos Thone book, which has some very interesting material. However I shall not use very much but I am going to use that authority in the early stages because it is the words of Jos on how he started in the sport. On how he first became involved with the pigeons I quote from the book, "From the moment I could walk, I was interested in pigeons. You couldn't get me out of the lofts in the following years. I pedalled my bike like a mad man on my way home from school to be back at the lofts as quickly as possible. I was busy with the care, feeding, releasing, anything and everything. When that was done, I was off to the basketing room to help getting the baskets ready, preparing the clocks, cleaning and any other chores. I was often the youngster among the grown men but I didn't care, just as long as I was working with pigeon's. I already knew that pigeons would be a determining factor in my life that I wanted to reach the top. It was a sort of burning passion, which I can't explain. My greatest role model at the time was Jan Grondelaers from Opglabeek, one of Belgium's greatest champions. When I heard the 'grown ups' talking about Jan and his super-pigeons, it really fired me up. That's when I was about twelve, I was often on my bike and off to Opglabeck on free days to stand and peer through the fence at his lofts. This was purely from admiration and as an example for me of what I later wanted to achieve". Anyway upon our arrival we could see that we were in for a treat because first impressions were, what more could a pigeon fancier want. Pigeon racing has reached great highs and those in a position to do so will continue the search for the ultimate dream of a racing pigeon, whether this will be the way to achieve that goal only time will tell. There is no doubt about it Jos Thone is young enough and successful enough to take the project to its limits and with his excellent racing pedigree he will get there in the end. That's enough and the future of Jos, what about the past and present where he has gained so much recognition in the world of pigeon racing. There is no doubt about the fact that he is full of enthusiasm for the sport and has travelled the world where he has met the best in the sport and probably seen all there is to see in the everyday world of racing pigeons. The nineties will be remembered as the decade that a life's ambition was reached but it was not without a high cost of hard work, time and money which as anyone will tell you does not come easily. Jos and wife Gaby have now the proud owners of a very nice home, family and the pigeons and loft that come with a dedicated fancier. However it was not easy because when the house was being built Gaby settled for what the could manage at the time because what was so important to Jos was getting the lofts built so that he could start racing as soon as possible. Many wives would not have let the building of pigeon lofts come before the finishing of the house but Gaby was a firm believer that they would reach their goal and worked hard with Jos to get their. These beliefs were a great foundation for a happy family life that they now have. Over the following months it was a case of getting the lofts finished in preference to the house so that the race team could be established and the racing begin. Right from the start Jos had made his mind up that the birds had to be of the highest quality and no homers would be tolerated and to help him achieve that Jos used the double widowhood system. By racing this system Jos was in a good position to select the best of both sexes and breed a top team of racers from the word go. If Jos had stuck to the traditional widowhood system for cocks, the hens would have had to be selected by his own preference but because they were all raced they automatically selected themselves in a much shorter time. What is quite easy to gather from conversations with this fancier is that he is not just going to stand on his laurels, instead he is always looking for improvements to make a better team of pigeons. The ultimate aim is to breed the perfect racing pigeon, the one that he can improve his already top class winning team. The lofts are not far from my own ideas of a perfect racing loft and to make life easy they are fitted with grill floors and conveyer belts to get rid of the droppings. Jos decided on this method so that he could spend more time observing the bird's which is where a top class fancier benefits, nothing is missed and any bird under par can be sorted out before being entered into the races. The widowhood hens are in pens behind each racing section which makes it easy to let them through to the cocks for the races. The hens are kept in pens with grilled floors and v-perches to deter them from pairing up and also a minimum amount of effort is needed to look after them, even so they are still kept in excellent condition which will benefit the cock. The v-perches are on the back of the loft in a narrow loft that also has a corridor with a full wire front, these birds are fed in troughs on the partitions from the corridor. When you are racing the widowhood system there is nothing worse than a hen that has no real interest in the cock that she is supposed to be enticing home that is why they are kept in superb condition. All the lofts have a corridor running the full length and there is also an office and lookout if the weather is below par. In each of the widowhood racing sections there is a radiator, which is a great asset in preparing the race team, the cocks have their own individual heating block to stand on in the box. These individual heaters may sound extravagant but when you see the results that have been achieved Jos must be right. Each section has a wide sliding door set in the centre so that the cocks can fly straight into their respective nest boxes with ease. The cocks are fed individually in their nest boxes which allows Jos the comfort of knowing exactly what and how much each bird is eating. Jos is a firm believer that there is a lot of rubbish written about feeding racing pigeons, he has no fancy measure for feeding, he does have a spoon but that is only because it is easier to put the corn into the pots. Feeding racing pigeons is where the winners and losers differ, the weather dictates the feed and those who can master this will be those whose pigeons put up the best performances. There is also a good team of stock birds housed at these lofts which have an aviary at the end, like the racers they are also on grill floors and are fed like the hens in communal troughs. There are some magnificent stock pigeons housed at these lofts that are proven racers and breeders of the highest quality. Jos is a big believer in the Bifs range of health care products and I must admit that since we have been using them our pigeons are much better. One of the major advantages of these products is that they have a very quick recuperation time. We had a couple of fanciers at "Elimar" after the hard first channel race for the Mid Cheshire Fed from Vire when many fanciers experienced heavy losses. We had a good race and the next day the pigeons looked and exercised the following day as if they had just been for a flap around home and not been to a hard channel race, the fancier concerned could not believe how well the pigeons looked. Jos has also found that the birds benefit from what has been referred to in Belgium as "Bifs Science" and uses the products extensively.
Lets get right up to date with news from Nikolaas Gyselbrecht of www.pip.be with this latest achievement in the Narbonne International race where he was 1 st & 2 nd yearlings. Narbonne took over the place of Beziers again, it's better this way, Narbonne has much more history and is much more prestigious than Beziers. The wind came out of the west, so we could expect the national winner in the province of Limburg, which is in the east of Belgium. This doesn't mean that this performance was less impressive but we have to mention the weather circumstances because this article will be translated in about 20 languages and will be published in pigeon magazines all over the world that is why it is very interesting to mention these circumstances. The winner of this International Narbonne race isn't an unknown. He once started as a loft manager at the lofts of Peeters & Zoon, after that he became famous in a very short period, because of that gift, the feeling for pigeons. Those performances a regular fancier couldn't achieve, Jos could achieve. He won already everything there is to win, from 100 KM until 1000 KM, he even won the International Barcelona race in 1996, in that time, it was together with his former partner Willems. He won himself something like 500 positions in top 100 on the national races of which many positions were in top 10 of the Nationals. Who can do better? Nobody! Or almost nobody. And we haven't really talked about the Narbonne race yet where he won 1 st and 2 nd International Yearlings in one of the most prestigious long distance races. But in fact those 2 yearlings are the fastest against the whole liberation, so are also faster than the old pigeons! These 2 pigeons are both hens and off course they also win 1 st and 2 nd National hens. The hen who won the race is now called Sedna who also won 206 th National St.Vincent against 10.022 pigeons and also 7 th Semi-National Jarnac against more than 5.000 pigeons. As a preparation for the season, Sedna was paired up in February and could raise 2 youngsters before she became a widow hen. It is interesting to mention that the first 3 pigeons of Jos on the Narbonne race were all grandchildren of his famous Sumo; this Sumo is also grandfather of the 1 st International Dax in 2003, won by Brian Sheppard in the UK. The 2nd International Narbonne Sedna 2 went to 11 races this year and won also 11 prizes! Last year Jos also won 1 st National Brive with the hens, which is already a great performance, but now he also wins 1 st International Narbonne against both old pigeons and yearlings. We want to wish the Thoné team congratulations, but we are sure this won't be the last time that Jos amazed the pigeon world! He is still too young and too ambitious.
Other results of Jos Thoné in 2005 : RESULTS
2005
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