Jan aarden silver Eye bird top class #janaarden #pigeon #racinghomerpigeon #kabootar

Jan Aarden, "The history of the Dutch extreme long distance pigeon - Part 1"
by Author: Sjra Hendriks / Edited by: Kurt Haesen on 11/03/2003
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Aarden Jan
Chapter One: One century ago... Before World War II... (page 9-30)
We go back in time: 6 november 1893. In Oosterhout out of the mariage of Martinus Aarden and Lucia Schoenmakers is born Jan Aarden. The city Oosterhout, a few kilometers in the north of Breda was known in that time by his bakeries. Jan Aarden grew up and went to the first school at the Saint Paulus Abbey in Oosterhout. Already soon it was known that Jan Aarden was fascinated by animals and racing pigeons in particular.

"Soigneur"
So as already said the palace of the racing pigeons at the abbey made quite some impression to mister Aarden. He spend lots of hours their and after a while he maintained the racing pigeons of father Paulus. Jan Aarden got passionated by the racing pigeons, he asked his father and mother dailly to build a pigeon loft at home. After a while his parents agreed. It was not big, not luxuourus... therefore his parents didn't have the money. But never the less Jan Aarden was king for one day. Now, the only missing piece in his kingdom were his pigeons.
His first couple of pigeons carries a beautifull story. In that time father Paulus raised the children with a system of green and red cards. For getting one red card, the children had to earn six green cards. A green card was a sign of hard work with the students. Jan Aarden was a very good student, he earned in no time six red cards. For six red cards the students got a book to read from father Paulus. But no so in the case of Jan Aarden, he wanted something else. He changed his six red cards for a couple of pigeons. And so a legendary story began: as pupil of father Paulus, Jan Aarden became the best and most famous racing pigeon fancier in the Netherlands all time. He's number one in the hall of fame when it comes to the long distance racing pigeon fanciers.

"Snelvliegers Oosterhout"
When Jan became 18, he became member of the club "Snelvliegers, Oosterhout" and he build in a short period of time a colony of very good flying racing pigeons. The pigeons he became from father Paulus were croppers and they were no good for racing. But the young mister Aarden had a big part of luck when he met Gerard Oomens in Breda. One of the six brothers, who stood at the beginning of an impressing racing pigeon career. Jan, Harry, Antoon, Gerard, Koos en Jef Oomens were the stars before World War II and they were the champions for the flights of long and extreme long distance in the Netherlands. Jan learned a lot about racing pigeon sport with the brothers Oomens. From father Oomens he learned the trics of the racing pigeon sport. Jan Aarden became a favourite friend of father Oomens and so the first pigeons moved from Breda to Oosterhout. Now Jan Aarden became in no time champion in his club in Oosterhout. On the short and middle long distance flights he was unbeatable and in the bigger organisation he even beated the Oomens Bros. with their own pigeons. The old bloodstrain of the Oomens Bros was original from Belgium racing pigeons. In that time his love was born for that type of pigeons. Decades later he tried again to breed back to that origin. You can say that Jan Aarden has been always more a bigger breeder than racer. Breeding very good racing pigeons was his passion.

"On his own wings"
Jan Aarden met in that period of time Jaantje Akkermans, the daughter of Toon Akkermans. On the twentieth july 1916 they married in Oosterhout. In that same year the new family moved to Teteringen a village between Breda and Oosterhout. They lived their for almost four years in a small house at the Hooge Steenweg. Jan Aarden build a racing pigeon loft in Teteringen and he removed his topflyers from Oosterhout to Teteringe. In Teteringe Jan Aarden was not succesfull at all with his racing pigeons. He had no time to spend for his racing pigeons because of his family and his wor. In 1921, the family Aarden moved again in the coldest of the winter from Teteringe to Steenbergen. Jan rented a home at the Molenweg and his racing pigeons stayed in Teteringen where he sold his racing pigeons for no or a little of money. He concetrated himself only to his wife and children now.

In the spring of 1924 Jan Aarden moved again from the Molenweg to the Grintweg. But playing with the racing pigeons was of no order because his fourth child would be born. The youngest son of Jan Aarden, Anton Aarden was also very interested in racing pigeons and when Anton