Guy Baerts – Grazen (Belgium)
The wonderful achievements that the pigeons colony of Guy Baerts (and his late father Henri) placed in the international “spotlights” for years, have made Guy and Pigeoncom decide to join forces. In this unique auction of Guy Baerts, two children of the world famous “Little Joe” will be auctioned, but also a child of “Armani”, the 1.International Perpignan! The pigeons of Guy Baerts are particularly coveted, because they mainly depend on the No. 1 of Belgium, the pigeons of Jos Thoné! These pigeons have been the main ingredient of the colony for years. Yet it is not only the pigeons of the super champion Thoné who rule this loft nowadays, because Guy invests very regularly in absolute super pigeons and his breeding loft is famous for the exceptional class. Many children of “Little Joe” and all those other super pigeons have moved to far away places in the Middle and Far East…
It is the Jos Thoné pigeons that made dozens of lofts in Belgium better and also made the loft Baerts champion. About ten years ago, it were the Thoné pigeons that made Henri & Guy Baerts National Champion of Belgium and their colony may be described as the noblest “branch” of Jos Thoné! The successtory started with the “Molnar” (a 100% Thoné pigeon and one of the founding cocks of Guy Baerts), followed by “Pocasso” (son of the world famous “Poco” of Thoné), there were children of the “Kleine Molenaar” (7.National Ace Pigeon Long Distance KBDB) and of course the big crack “Little Joe” (a.o. 9.International Marseille against 20.786 pigeons). This beautiful story of “Little Joe” says it all:
“It all happened on a Saturday July 19th 2003, the weather reports of the last few days seem to be right. It’ll be a tropical day with a temperature of 35° C in France. Hereby a North-East breeze and each fancier knows that this will be a hard job for the 20.786 pigeons that were put in on the classical long distance race from Marseille. We all know that Marseille usually is a difficult race because of the geographic position. The birds were released at 6.30 a.m. to start a long and difficult way home.
Father and son Baerts basketted 3 pigeons for this heavy classic race among which a 2-year old cock, dark chequered by the name of “Little Joe”. Already as a yearling, this cock had been noticed on a very heavy race from Jarnac (700 km), on which he scored well with a prize per 20, clocked the next morning around 7, again a prove that it was a very hard race. On that same day of Marseille, there also was the race from Souillac and the first bird from this race had a speed of 1247 m/m but only 42 pigeons did more than 1200 m/m.
It was about 19.30 when Guy Baerts sat down on the stairs of the pigeon loft. The windows were still closed because they didn’t expect the pigeons yet. At the time, there wasn’t the possibility to follow the announcements on the internet. Only a few minutes later, his rest was interrupted when suddenly a pigeon fell on the roof and then tried to get inside. In a hurry, the window was opened and “Little Joe” was clocked. The pigeons had to be announced in the club of Obrafo Tienen but the “operator” wasn’t really ready for the pigeons of Marseille because he still was busy with the announcements from Souillac. After the man was convinced that it really was a bird from Marseille, he wrote it all down.
“Little Joe” won 9th International against 20.786 pigeons. The second bird in the club Obrafo Tienen was announced more than 2 hours later. The day of release, only 200 pigeons of 20.786 that were put in, reached their loft.
Because he returned rather “fresh” after such a tough journey, his origins and his exceptional beauty, Henri & Guy decided to move “Little Joe” to the breeding loft.
“Little Joe” is a rather small bird but with an exceptional quality of feathers and an eye, of which an “eye-specialist” once said that he’d never seen such a breeding quality before. About his origins, we can say that “Little Joe” is an inbreed product to the famous “Poco Diego”-strain of Jos Thoné from As. It’s also a fact that one of the best long distance hens that Jos ever owned: “Godiva”, 1.Prov, 9.National Bordeaux; 1.Prov, 11.National Perpignan; 27.National Barcelona, 24.Inter-Prov. St-Vincent, etc…was a half-sister of “Little Joe”.
Very soon Henri & Guy found out that they took the right decision when a daughter of “Little Joe” won 1.Prov. Montauban, 8.Nat. Montauban against 6.187 pigeons. In very short time, first prizes were won by his children from Bordeaux, St Vincent, Tulle and Nanteuil. But what’s even more important: his grandchildren and great grandchildren all showed their exceptional qualities on the races… it’s with those pigeons that pass on their qualities in several generations, that you can start to build a colony.
“Little Joe” is father, grandfather, greatgrandfather of:
1.Prov. Montauban, 1.Bordeaux, 1.St Vincent, 1.Tulle, 1.Nanteuil
1.Prov. Pau 249 p.
1.Laon 1.426 p.
1.Hafr Al Batin (SAU) 3.212 p.
1.Prov. Libourne 551 p.
1.Cadiz (Esp) 600 p.
1.Prov. Montauban 722 p.
2.OLR Semi-Final Costa del sol 1.248 p.
2.OLR Final Costa del sol 749 p.
2.Nat. C Argenton 679 p.
3.Nat. C Brive 1.058 p.
3.Semi-Nat. Jarnac 3.714 p.
3.Olympiad pigeon Cat E Brussels 2017
3.Nat C1 Gueret 746 p.
4.Nat. Montauban 6.809 p.
4.Nat. C Jarnac 427 p.
4.Samosierra (Esp) 2.505 p.
6.Fourges (UK) 1.361 p.
6.Nat. Nevers 2.912 p.
6.Montauban (Fr 8.598 p.
6.Int. Bordeaux 10.919 p.
7.Prov. Libourne 560 p.
7.Prov. Perpignan 1.084 p.
7.Laon 1.465 p.
8.Nat. Montauban 6.187 p.
8.Prov. Libourne 990 p.
8.Skaka (SAU) (1.040 km) 3.459 p.
8.Nat. Catanzaro (Mt) 3.999 p.
8.Nat. C1 Gueret 746 p.
10.Yelvertin (UK) 1.999 p.
10.Int. Agen 6.042 p.
10.Prov. Barcelona 712 p.
10.Bordeaux (Fr) 1.004 p.
10.Int. Perpignan 15.937 p.
11.Nat. Perpignan 5.254 p.
11.Nat. C1 Chateauroux 880 p.
11.Nat. C Jarnac 1.001 p.
11.Fourges (UK) 1.361 p.
11.Limoges 2.380 p.
12.Prov. Bordeaux 936 p.
12.Bordeaux (Fr) 753 p.
13.Prov. Cahors 923 p.
14.Prov. Limoges 1.723 p.
15.Nat. C Valence 1.693 p.
17.Marsac (Fr) 1.088 p.
18.Nat. Libourne 3.925 p.
18.Nat. Tulle 8.656p.
18.Marsac (Fr) 1.089 p.
19.Prov. Chateauroux 1.038 p.
19.Yelvertin (UK) 1.999 p.
20.Little Hampton (UK) 4.731 p.
20.Exceter (UK) 5.736 p.
20.Int. Narbonne 13.527 p.
22.Nat. Agen 3.547 p.
23.Prov. Chateauroux 2.253 p.
23.Nat. C Tulle 2.780 p.
25.Arar (SAU) (1.000 km) 1.838 p.
25.Little Hampton (UK) 3.026 p.
27.Nat. Pau 1.989 p.
27.Nat. St-Vincent 2.562 p.
28.Nat. Narbonne 3.942 p.
28.Nat. Souillac 5.282 p.
28.S-Nat. St-Vincent 1.408 p.
29.Int. Perpignan 12.698 p.
30.Nanteuil (NL) 3.112 p.
30.S-Nat. Tulle 2.191 p.
34.Nat. C Brive 2.693 p.
34.Nat. C Argenton 6.630 p.
35.Bergerac (Fr) 2.962 p.
35.Nat. Narbonne 5.098 p.
36.Nat. Marseille (Nl) 3.610 p.
39.Nat. Limoges 14.263 p.
42.Nat. St-Vincent 3.132 p.
43.Nat. Pau 1.980 p.
43.Nat. C Tulle 3.330 p.
44.Nat. B Limoges 3.986 p.
46.Nat. St-Vincent 3.240 p.
46.Semi-Nat. Chateauroux 10.719 p.
49.Nat. Agen 5.335 p.
49.Nat. Libourne 7.958 p.
50.Argenton (Fr) 2.500 p.
50.Nat. C Limoges 4.076 p.
51.Nat. Barcelona 10.542 p.
55.Nat. Gueret 2.608 p.
56.Nat. Montelimar 8.232 p.
61.Semi-Nat. Chalone 5.699 p.
62.Nat. Chateauroux 18.725 p.
63.Nat. B Limoges 4.457 p.
65.Nat. Orange 4.443 p.
76.Nat. Libourne 7.958 p.
78.Nat. Tulle 5.124 p.
82.Int. Agen 4.524 p.
85.Nat. Tulle 6.345 p.
88.Manfredonia 660 km Malta 3.500 p.
86.Nat. Bordeaux 2.648 p.
109.Nat. Bourges 18.826 p.
126.Nat. Limoges 16.012 p.
262.Nat. Souillac 7.315 p.
375.Nat. Limoges 11.995 p.
All results above are without any doubles. At the age of 16, “Little Joe” is still full of life and he fertilises for 100%, which is a quality not to underestimate. This is the story of a very exceptional pigeon “Little Joe” ! The sire of one of the pigeons in the auction of Guy Baerts, one of the foundation cocks of his loft and a truly very famous pigeon all over the world!
