Benno Kastelein, Hengelo, The Netherlands
The 50-year-old Benno Kastelein, cafetaria owner, father of two grown-up sons, lives with his girlfriend Patricia in Hengelo. He is fond of pigeons all of his life. As a little boy one of his favorite things todo was to feed the pigeons in the park. It wasn’t very surprising that he already had his first pigeons at the age of 7 in a box on the wall. Nowadays it is the marathon flights which stole his heart. The taking care of his colony, does he all by himself, but with this understanding that Patricia doesn’t see Benno’s hobby as a burden at all. He gets all the space he needs for the daily household of his loft and for investing all the time and money required to storm the National top.
As a result of all the energy he puts in his hobby, Benno Kastelein became one of the Marathon champions in the eastern side of the Netherlands. This part of Holland is rapidly developing as the new West-Brabant from the previous decades, whereas Nijverdal is the new Steenbergen. Talking about Nijverdal…Benno Kastelein is a personal friend of Jelle Jellema and as a result of that friendship we should not be surprised that his loft consists of a large number of direct Jellema’s.
As already said, Benno Kastelein is very focused on the marathon races. Not only as a highly competative fancier, but also as the brandnew chairman of the VNCC, the “Long distance/Marathon club in (north) east Holland”. He wants not only the best for himself, but he clearly wants the best for the entire marathon part of the game, which he obviously loves so much!
With the purchase of Jelle Jellema pigeons (about which more later), his performances went sky-high. One of the evidences of this is, among others, the 9th National Championship overnight long distance in The Netherlands. Back in 2003, he purchased two pigeons from Jelle Jellema. The Jellema pigeons he bought in the old days have given Benno Kastelein’s loft an enormous boost and even nowadays we still see these pigeons appearing in the pedigrees, not only in Hengelo: “Blauwe Kastelein” (Comb. Niks), “Mister Kastelein” (Dekker en zn) and of the best examples “Blauwe Benno” (Jelle Jellema). This classy bird is one of the better pigeons at the Jellema loft and was bred by Benno. But surely it were not only Jellema pigeons responsible for the successes of Kastelein: in addition we see pigeons of Arjan Beens (Genemuiden, NL), Harold Zwiers (Den Ham, NL) and Herman Sabel (Hengelo, NL). Benno Kastelein won much, from 1st Provincial Orange till 1st National Cahors against 12.917 birds (with his wellknown “Silverlady”). This 1st National victory was clearly the “cherry on the pie”, as “Silverlady” won the 17th NPO Aurillac and the 9th NPO Limoges before on her first two races she was basketted for. It was certainly the highlight of his first chapter in Marathon racing.
After his total sales (because of moving to another house) of the loft Kastelein (which was a huge success by the way) Benno picked up his search for good pigeons to make a restart at his new address. Chapter 2 was started, another house, a new loft with new challenges! His aim was to restart with a Jellema based colony again. He bought a few, and he got a few (from his best pigeonfriends). His breedingloft now contains the best of the best from his friend Jellema with a.o. children of “Blauwe Benno”x”Romee”, “Roman”x “Rena”, “New Jade 3″x”Silvia”, “Inteelt Saffier”x”Maud”, “New Jade 1″x”Klein Kweekstertje”, “Zilverpenne”x “Brenda”, “Late Blauwe”x”Dochter Romee” (the last two from top fancier Cees Nijdeken), “Zoon Romee”x”Dochter Silvie”, …. with these pigeons it is a matter of time and great marathon success is guaranteed. The past racing season was started with a tiny group of late bred 2015 youngsters. His sportive restart kicked off at Limoges and it appeared to be an enormous success! His brandnew loft seemed to be a perfect new home! His pigeons felt at ease and Benno’s ideas of how to take good care, prepare and race with his new marathon pigeons, paid off immediately. At Limoges he won the 13th NPO. A few pigeons were basketted for Périgieux and that became the 11th NPO. And the final race Benno participated in, was Bergerac: 3rd NPO and a 7th National!!
And now, in 2018, ambitious as he is…he wants to win again. Benno Kastelein is back on track!
