Introduction
简介

Early in January 2006 Koen Minderhoud asked me to write a preface on the occasion of the presentation of his new pigeons website. I had to know enough about Koen and his pigeons since we have a solid tie of friendship -that was built up during our many years’ of membership of local club “de zwaluw” in Westkapelle- and since we were racing the same kind of pigeons since the early nineties

早在2006年的一月份柯恩闵得豪德就让我给他得新鸽子网站写一个绪言。因为我们得关系很铁，所以我必须了解关于柯恩和他的鸽子的情况。而我们的关系是通过我们多年的在西卡贝拉本地“de zwaluw”俱乐部的会员关系建立起来的。而且我们早在九十年代就用相同种类的鸽子比赛。

For as long as I know Koen he has always had a good sports mentality, the true will to win and to achieve good results. He already had a competitive spirit back in the years when he was playing football and that spirit kept with him until today. Everyone who knows Koen will agree.

从我认识柯恩起，我就知道他一直以来都有着很好的运动精神，忠诚的意志去赢得比赛，去获得好的结果。想当年他踢足球的时候，他就已经有了竞争的精神，而这个精神他一直坚持到今天。每个知道柯恩的人都会同意这个说法。

He is also a man who knows exactly what he wants, he will never leave anything up to chance and everything he does is first being considered very thoroughly. If you want to talk certain things through with Koen he is always very clear, businesslike and honest.

他是一个完全知道他想要什么的人，他不会将任何事归于偶然，并且在做任何事之前他都会做彻底的思考。如果你想和他谈论一些事情，柯恩总是很清醒，有效率并且诚实。

This is undoubtedly something he learnt from the days when he had to steer his steel construction company in the right direction. But he was always able to switch the “button” on time, sociability and friendship are also to Koen of great importance in case of a championship for example or a night out.

这些毫无疑问是他在正确掌管他的钢铁建筑公司的日子里学到的。但是他总是可以在恰当的时间把“开关”打开，社交和友谊对于柯恩来说同样重要，比如，冠军和出席晚会是同样重要的。

His pigeon racing career in broad lines.

Koen Minderhoud was born and bred in Westkapelle which is situated in the extreme western tip of Walcheren, very close to the North Sea. Westkapelle is known to most people because of its lighthouse, the proud sea wall and because of the fact that during the war most of this town was destroyed by a bombardment.

他的鸽子的竞赛生涯

柯恩闵得豪德出生并且生长在西卡贝拉，它坐落在伐耳赫伦岛(Walcheren)德最西部，离北海很近。西卡贝拉因为它的灯塔，波涛汹涌的大海墙和在战争时期被炮弹毁坏的城镇闻名于世。

Nowadays, Westkapelle is famous for its tourism and among pigeon fanciers it is known because Koen Minderhoud has been achieving top results for many years.

现今，西卡贝拉以旅游业著称，并且在鸽迷中非常出名，因为柯恩闵得豪德多年来取得了很多顶尖的成绩。

Koen started at a relatively young age with pigeon sport and he has been racing for a long time in the local club “de zwaluw”. For two years during that period, Koen had no pigeons but he could not carry on like that so it did not take long before he found himself among pigeons again.

柯恩在相当年轻的时候就开始参加赛鸽运动，他在本地的“de zwaluw”俱乐部比赛了很长时间。在那段时间内，有两年柯恩都没有自己的鸽子，但是没过多久他就重新拥有了很多鸽子。

I remember clearly that Koen was racing pigeons in the “Wilhelminastraat”, then, the Minderhoud family moved to the “Huijgensstraat”. Some good results were achieved at this address and back then, he was racing together with his brother-in-law. The help he got from his companion was very welcome since Koen was running a busy company.

我清楚的记得柯恩曾经在“威尔赫米那斯达特”赛鸽，之后，闵得豪德家族搬往“惠津斯达特”。一些优秀的成绩在这里取得，之后又回去和他的小叔子合作比赛。他非常欢迎他的同伴的帮忙，因为柯恩有一家很忙的公司。

The third and at the same time last address in Westkapelle was in the “Koestraat”, when you drove up the sea wall, you could see the brick pigeons lofts. Koen achieved the best results on middle distance races, let’s say races till Orleans with a distance of almost 420 km, at this address. But Koen wanted in fact to perform on one day long distance races, races up until approximately 700 km. In his search for reinforcement, his eye fell on the Belgian champions loft of Gaby Vandenabeele in Dentergem.

This fancier was performing extremely well, especially on provincial and national one day long distance races.

这个鸽迷的表现非常好，尤其是在省级和国家级比赛中，飞行一天的长距离比赛。

Koen paid Gaby Vandenabeele a first visit in 1991. All the pigeons in the breeding loft were carefully examined and Koen was impressed with the quality in Gaby’s breeding loft.

柯恩在1991年对盖比凡得那比进行了第一次访问。他仔细检查了育种鸽舍里面所有的鸽子，柯恩对盖比育种鸽舍的鸽子质量留下了很深的印象。

He wanted young pigeons that descended from the very best so Koen acquired youngsters from a.o. “de Bijter”, “de Kleinen”, “de Wittenbuik”, “de Picanol”. Koen brought his new acquisitions immediately into action and let them fly after season races. He was indeed surprised when these pigeons were apparently able to win top prizes in all of the after season races at such a young age. Koen was now convinced that he had made the right choice by obtaining these kind of pigeons.

After breeding and racing with this kind of pigeons for some years, achievements went up. This kind could win top prizes in races from 100 to 700 km.

An inexhaustible series of successes was obtained as well regarding speed races as middle distance and one day long distance races.

在喂养和让这些鸽子比赛了多年后，成绩开始上升了。这些鸽子可以在100到700千米的比赛中获得冠军。

他获得了无数的成功，包括速度赛，中距离比赛和历时一天的长距离比赛。

After this first trip to Dentergem he paid several other visits to add even more of the same top breeders to his loft. Later-on, he co-bred with “de Wittenbuik” and “de Stier”. And even up until today, there are still pigeons being exchanged between Koen and Gaby.

在第一次拜访登特吉姆之后，他又去了很多次并且往他的鸽舍里增加了更多的同样顶级的种鸽。随后，他对“de Wittenbuik” 和 “de Stier”进行了联合培育。即使到了今天，柯恩和盖比仍然在交换鸽子。

Another move

In October 2001, Koen told me that he was planning to move and that they had bought a beautiful detached house with a large garden (1.900 square meters) in “de Ter Poorteweg 1” in Koudekerke.

Living at this address meant that both Koen and his wife Elly had found a place to pay some attention to their hobbies; to Elly this was gardening and to Koen this was of course keeping pigeons.

After making some adjustments to the new home, they moved from Westkapelle to Koudekerke just before Christmas 2001. It did not take long before the beautiful new pigeon loft was installed. This was a new start or a shared new start because the base, i.e. the breeding pigeons, were moved from Westkapelle to Koudekerke. The racing team was not moved but sold in the spring of 2002 to Hans Eijerkamp & Sons. Koen knew that he could not move top racers to the breeding loft during the two or three years to come which was why he kept the four best yearlings for breeding purposes. The 24 breeding couples were put together as soon as the new loft was finished. Since the breeding boxes were taken from the loft in Westkapelle and organized in the same way, it was not a problem for the breeding pigeons to adjust to the new environment.

在对新家进行了一些调整后，他们就在2001年圣诞前从西卡贝拉搬到了柯德可可。把新的鸽舍安置好也没有花费很长时间。这是一个新的开始，或者说是一个共同的新的开始，因为最基本的，比如种鸽，也从西卡贝拉搬到了柯德可可。比赛队伍没有搬过来，而是在2002年春天卖给了汉斯埃杰卡姆普和散斯。柯恩知道他不能在未来的两到三年内把顶级赛鸽搬到鸽舍，这也就是为什么他保留了四个最好的一岁鸽，以备育种之用。新的鸽舍一建成，24对种鸽夫妻立即被放在一起。因为育种箱也从西卡贝拉带过来，并且按原来的方式摆放，所以对于种鸽来说，适应新的环境不是问题。