In the middle of 1994, 60 years young, after an active career of 44 years, Frans retired. Although, due to the help of his lovely wife, the results of his pigeons, were not bad at all before his retiring, there was no doubt an improvement being at home all the time

In 1978, due to sentimental reasons? Frans started with the pigeon sport. Although because of professional obligations, there was no free time available to care for his pigeons, he constructed a little loft of 17 by 6 feet and the train could start. Initially he made as so many fanciers before him, the mistake of bringing together a lot of different blood streams from different, most of them famous, fanciers. After a short time he realized that this sport was not so simple as that. So he decided to reduce the number of different origins. With more luck then wisdom, his first good breeding couple was soon discovered. A red cock from Thijs Louis of Wiekevorst the 87/6692102 a son of the Red Prince was coupled at a hen of Menten Michel of Tongerlo a late sister of his Zotteke. From then on the pigeon sport seemed a lot easier. This first breeding couple produced for many years top flying pigeons, the lineal descendants are still present, as a red thread, in his present race.

There were he, as most fanciers are doing, started with sprint races, Quievrain and Noyon, 80 and 140 miles, he rather quickly understood that for this discipline the impact and the role of the fancier was a crucial part of the results. Being most of the time away from home, he realized that he had to switch to a discipline were the role of the pigeon was more important than the support of the fancier. He switched to the middle distance flights and this with more than good results. The last 10 years before he switched in 1998 to the long distance flights, the following results in the club were obtained: 15 times 1° champion of a discipline, 9 times General Champion and 15 Ace Pigeons. In this period and with a little bit of luck, he discovered his second good breeding couple. In the chemical factory where Frans was Plant Manager he needed a chemical civil engineer, a young guy Danny Debaere presented himself and during his presentation he seemed to have an uncle, a close friend of Sylvain Dhondt, who was a pigeon fancier. Frans bought 3 pigeons from this guy. He coupled one of those pigeons, a son of The Fighter, the 92/4282639, against a hen of Marcel Ooms Deckx, the 94/6154241 with direct Janssen blood.( The Schouwman and the raket hen in the pedigree ) This new couple produced pigeons able to fly top prices in the long distant races up to Brive, 450 miles. The best obtained however was the fact that youngsters of this second couple crossed to those of the Red Prince produced very good youngsters.

So his third and probably his best breeding couple, Frans calls them his Golden Couple, was composed out of his first two couples. The cock the 97/6382233 came out of a son of the Red Prince coupled with a daughter of the famous “100” of Van Gestel Karel from Dessel. This cock is, probably for his lifetime, coupled at his Elfje, who is a daughter of a son of the Red Prince coupled at a pigeon of Sylvain Dhondt. This 97/6382211 is called Elfje for three different reasons: First of all she is such a nice and beautiful hen, secondly because of her ring number and thirdly because she has 11 feathers at both wings. This couple produced already 3 Ace Pigeons in the Club, a 2° price in Bochum Germany from more then 20.000 pigeons, a first price winner in the federation by Terry Callan of Brotton, 5 first price winners in the Molse Fondclub, a 17° price of the Eijerkamp Bejing China race of 2001 and one of the best hens in 2001 of the Jos Thone’s WPC center in Hoesselt Belgium.

As a conclusion we may say that the by those 3 couples produced race is a homogeneous race able to fly head prices from 80 to 500 miles. They resulted in 2000 and 2001 in the 1° Championship long distance Old Birds and the 2° General Championship long distance in the Molse Fondclub, without even playing with young birds. Also in the years 2002 and 2003 Frans was every year between the champions.
For the overnight flights Frans bought pigeons by Herman van de Sande, original Soontjes and by Berghmans Leon, original Wanroy and Meulemans pigeons. Te last four years he tried the Barcelona race with one pigeon: the first year with a 10° and the second year with the 6° price, the third time the 3° and this year 2003 the 8° price in the club. All those years about 1 of 10 national.

For next year Frans prepared 30 widowers all able to fly first prices. Although Frans is convinced that for those long distance races with 2 or 3 nights sitting in the baskets, hens are more suitable, he will try to do it with those widowers.

According to Frans there are no secrets in the pigeon sport, what you need is good pigeons, a good location, a good but not exaggerated housekeeping and a good motivation, when the pigeons are then in good health there must be results. Naturally you must not have bad luck, when that is happening to oft nobody can find a good solution for that.

The most important factor in racing pigeons is having friends. Good friends are there in good and bad times. Discussing the results after a race between palls and with a good glass of beer can be divine.