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The Alberta Classic Stock Section
(It will house only Alberta Classic top performance pigeons because "like begets like...".)
This stock section houses some of the finest racing pigeons to be found anywhere.
They excelled in one field: racing performance. Some fanciers may value a pigeon who performs well in the annual
show circuit but I have always looked at that aspect of our hobby with some disdain. What does it really matter what
this or that judge thinks about a racing pigeon? Has it not been bred specifically to perform well in the races?
And now comes to mind the ACE hen of all of Germany in the late 1990's. She was awarded more racing points than
any other hen since 1972 and yet the owner did not enter her in any exhibitions. The reason? "She had a weak back".
Does this not come close to the pinnacle of arrogance as it relates to our self - inflated "knowledge" of
what a good racing pigeon should look or feel like? Any idiot can put on a white coat and pretend to be able to
judge the sporting qualities of a racing pigeon by its physical attributes but nobody has yet been able to show me how exactly
that could be done. This leaves me with only one option for testing the sporting qualities of racing pigeons:
organize competitions. This then will show the sporting qualities of a pigeon but will say very little about its breeding potential. It is
well known that ace pigeons sometimes fail miserably in our attempts to have them reproduce their sporting qualities. But I'd still rather breed off a
bird with the desired sporting qualities than from a bird who lacks them. Here is how a well known fancier from Europe does it:
"We line-breed always back to the ace pigeon and not to its brother or sister. Cruyff was our best soccer player and not his brother!!
We put only pure Janssen pigeons with Vechter x Witpenneke blood into our stock loft and these need to be perfect in the hand with closed vents,
fast wing, short backwing and top eye. A pigeon will not enter our stock loft if one of these qualities is missing."
It makes no sense to
argue with him since he is very successful with his pigeons in the short, middle, and long distance races.
Please click on a band # or thumbnail image below
for details about a pigeon.
