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German Golden Grizzle Delbars From the French speaking part of Belgium, is the little town of Ronse, home to one of the most famous racing pigeon fanciers of the 20th Century, his name was Maurice Delbar. Today many years after his string of great national wins, the Delbar name is well known around the world. Even to this day, in Mainland China, the "Delbar" is still the #1 strain. What is little known about Maurice Delbar is that he kept an exceptional family of grizzles. The descendants of his "Golden Grizzles" made many a Belgian and German fancier famous after World War II. During the years of his fame the entire world knew of his world champion flyer "Little Chequer". Born in the year 1932, "Little Chequer" dominated the National St. Vincent races. He placed an amazing 2 X 1st National plus 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 10th National during his racing career. A better racing pigeon probably has never existed. Around this same time, Mr. Delbar purchased a grizzle hen from an unknown fancier in his area and in 1934 bred the "Little Chequer" with the grizzle hen. Descendants of this pairing, later to be known as the Delbar grizzles, turned out to be exceptional racers and breeders for many famous flyers. One example is the "Super Grizzle" cock of Hector Berlengee. This cock won 14 times in the top 100 when entered in National races of between 450 to 600 miles. The "Super Grizzle" was 100% pure Delbar grizzle. It is understood in Germany, that the "Golden Grizzle" Hen purchased by Thomas Peeters carried the Delbar Grizzle in her veins. This famous stock hen is considered by many to be the world’s best breeding hen. One of her direct sons was the Champion "Barcelona" bred by Peeters. This famous cock, born in 1970 won 1st National St. Vincent twice, flying a race distance of more than 560 miles. Peeters, key stock bird, "Korte Bek" Belgium 1975; is a grandson of the "Golden Grizzle" Hen as is the "Kleine Molenaar", 1st National Ace Pigeon Long Distance in 1977 and 3rd National Ace pigeon Long Distance 1980. The strength of these Delbar grizzles can be seen even in Jos Thone’s last big champion (1st Provincial Ace Pigeon KBDB), which is also of this family. Maurice Delbar kept good relations with some German businessmen like Mr. Carl Goschalla, Mr. Kreutz, Mr. Holland, etc. and these men were able to purchase children of the key breeders and champion racers from Mr. Delbar especially the Golden grizzle Delbars. These Golden grizzle Delbars are still today winning very good national prizes especially from Barcelona and Marseilles. In Germany, we have found that the Golden grizzle Delbars cross well with the Janssen, Meuleman, Graondelaers and the Hofkens birds. The Golden grizzles are also excelling at the shorter distance races on the southeast and east race courses out of Austria and Poland. These are headwind courses are very dangerous for the birds because of the many miles of mountains, forest, and the many hawks and falcons to be found there. Some of the well-known southeast release points are: Vienna, St.Poelten, Linz, and Komarno. The east course into Poland has the release points of Posen, Goerlitz, Sulecin, and Krakow etc. The clever German fancier, who is looking for new stock, does not travel to Belgium or Holland to buy the "Big pedigrees", but they visit good flyers that are very successful in the competitions from Southeast racing points. These intelligent Germans know when they obtain new stock from lofts flying the "Southeast" or "East" route that they are getting birds with good health and vitality. Intelligent and powerful breeders with the stamina to fly against the head winds over tough terrain and win! These "east course" birds are of small to medium size, not heavy in the hand! It is the "dream" of all German flyers to breed a National Ace pigeon, a bird that wins top prizes week after week, from May 1st to the end of July, accumulating up to 5,000 km total flying distance during this time. -- To be continued in July - |