Hugo Batenburg

HISTORY

Klaaswaal, a town in the Netherlands, is famous for the pigeon fancier Hugo Batenburg and his wife Anita van de Merwe. Together, they started their loft at the end of 1996. Both have famous parents in pigeon racing: Hugo is the son of Bas Batenburg, and Anita is the daughter of Piet van de Merwe. Hugo Batenburg can without doubt be considered the best breeder of today's Jan Aarden pigeons in the Netherlands. His base pigeon Witbuik is legendary.

The Batenburg-Van De Merwe family focuses on long distance racing throughout the season. They say that the pigeons that excel in this type of racing are the ones you need if you are planning to improve your stock, as a bird that wins this type of racing is the strongest in the flock. The philosophy of the Batenburg - van de Merwe family is that "top class pigeons are derived from first class pigeons".

The famous 'Witbuik' dynasty

In 1981 a dark white specimen was born in the loft of Batenburg and son. After a few days the pigeon had the now famous number 81-1533120. At that time Bas and his son Hugo had no clue about the impact of this pigeon that would drastically change their careers. This powerful pigeon was soon named Witbuik, and can be said to have significantly changed the pigeon family in Klaaswaal.

When Witbuik was in the Batenburg loft they used to think that he was probably too handsome to be a useful pigeon. "He is not going to be a good racing pigeon," said Bas Batenburg. But he was quite the opposite. He was very successful as a racer: he won a national 14 St Vincent against 16,629 pigeons, a national number 85 St Vincent and seven other first prizes in important long distance races. Witbuik was a very talented racing pigeon. Later it was shown that he had some outstanding breeding qualities as well. This first class pigeon moved to the breeding loft in 1987, and is now sire and grandsire of numerous national winners.

Jonge Witbuik

One of the most talented Witbuik offspring is 91-2.129.010. He had a good plumage like his father and was well balanced. In the total auction of father and son Bas and Hugo by Jan Hermans (De Duif magazine) in 1995 the pigeon was sold to Co Veenendaal. And he decided to buy and place the bird in his loft in Veenendaal. 91- 2129010 was named Jonge Witbuik. Later one day Coen was in the restaurant of Guus van Aken (from Wijk Bij Duurstede), who had just sold his pigeon collection. Guus had always wanted a son of Witbuik and this was a good opportunity. Although he no longer had any pigeons, he wanted to have Jonge Witbuik in his loft in Wijk Bij Duurstede, so he decided to buy her. In the first years after the purchase, there was no breeding. Finally he made use of Jonge Witbuik in the breeding loft and the results were amazing: it is hard to imagine the number of top class pigeons that were bred by this amazing pigeon.

Hugo Batenburg and Guus decided to do a joint breeding with the Jonge Witbuik. Now, a few years later, Guus have become very good friends of Hugo and Anita. Since 2005 all the youngsters that were bred from Jonge Witbuik have moved to Hugo and Anita's fully equipped attic. Unfortunately, Jonge Witbuik no longer produces youngsters; the last child was born in 2010, when Jonge Witbuik had reached the age of 19. 

With a well thought-out system, Hugo and Anita have managed to preserve the breeding qualities of these pigeons and try to further strengthen their already excellent pigeon breed with the addition of some of the best pigeons available.

Their superior breeding method is well thought out and the way they carefully introduce new bloodlines into the magnificent Batenburg - Van De Merwe breed was perfectly illustrated on 30 June 2012. That was the day when 47 racing birds of Hugo and Anita were released in Bordeaux at 7 o'clock in the morning. In the evening, pigeon fanciers in Boomdijk witnessed something that had possibly never happened before: one after the other, the pigeons returned to the loft. The successful breeders from Klaaswaal have seen a lot of great achievements, but this was a success never seen before! Their pigeons manifested themselves in one of the fairest races in the season: no less than 19 racers came home on the same day of the release. They arrived at 18:29, 18:31, 18:34, 18:37, 18:39, 18:48, 19:14, 19:22, 19:37, 19:45, 19:48, 19:53 etc., and achieved a result that surprised many long distance fanciers: 2, 3, 6, 9, 11, 14, 60, 74 or national, etc. Confirming that the performance of the Batenburg team, in this race were really surprising.

The third national was won by the superstar Aron. This male is derived from a son of Jonge Witbuik by his close friend Guus van Aken and a breeding female by Piet Blancke (Ruiselede).