2003 AU Legend, Happy Grandpa wins 1st
Overall
in 20th Annual Ohio-Penn 500 Mile Federation
Race
By Coop
Kohli (coopkohli@yahoo.com)
 |
| AU Lakes Zone Dir., Lee Kohli |
I asked myself, what drives a man like this, although I’ve
seen the condition before. Lucky in
marriage, Harry Boos, 83, of Stow,
Ohio, has had his motor running full speed for a long time, but age doesn’t
seem to be getting its miserable grip on him. Maybe it’s because of his pigeons, or maybe it
is because of the way he plays golf every day in the summer, but you’ve heard
me say it before. These old-time pigeon
guys no longer fit the conventional description of old age, and are energized, tougher,
busier, bolder and faster than you might think.
On a sunny day in late June, 2010, old Harry, like Ross Perot in a
presidential bid, snuck up again, and taught the lesser skilled long flyers a lesson
in how to prepare for, and win, the region’s most important long distance OPF race.
Flying 488 miles from East St Louis, Missouri, to Stow,
Ohio, (near Akron) Harry beat second place OCTOGENARIAN
CHAMPION, Bud House, of Girard Ohio, by over 4 minutes, against a field of
1062 birds from 77 lofts. The Ohio-Penn Racing Pigeon Federation has
a racing format that brings stinging competition together from 4 states: northeastern
Ohio, western Pennsylvania, western New York and western Maryland. The racing competitors are cunning and determined;
distance-racing experience is high, and the bragging rights are huge when one
is able to land the over-all victory in one of these regional thrillers. Saving
Harry was a white grizzle hen that flew home like she had a rocket strapped to
her backside. The ‘Wisconsin Arrow’, AU 362 GAR 07, is a product of crossing his double
line-bred Busshaert family with a
White Grizzle Gary Davison cock sent
to him from an old friend (1945), Dale
Herion of Janesville, Wisconsin. The
pear shaped, medium sized, soft feathered hen started her conditioning for the
race well in advance of the contest with an early 150 mile race in late May, a
100 mile training toss in early June, eggs on June 12th, a 200 mile
race on June 19th, and finally, into the prestigious 500 mile event
on June 26th. Racing home to
14 day old eggs at 1421 ypm, the motivated little hen was perhaps additionally stimulated,
for she had to cover those delicate little eggs alone for 2 days, pulling duty
for a mate, a subtlety you might want to remember for your own bag of tricks.
A Legend’s Résumé
“In every Cardinal’s
lunch box, is a Field Marshall’s baton.” once said a conquering Napoleon
Bonaparte. In Harry’s case, the outwardly
affable and likeable man is driven, on the inside, like a hell-bent NASCAR
driver. Starting his pigeon racing
education in 1943, while in high school, in Janesville, Wisconsin, itself a
club spawning some nationally known greats, most of whom in those years, were
serving our nation in the WW II, the eager upstart Boos developed a wonderful
friendship, and the beginning of a great life-time of mentoring, with teaching
Champion Bob Wolfe. A stint in the US Air
Force, college, then marriage to the beautiful young femme Jeanne, saw the
sociable Sgt. Boos land a plush sales job with the Arrow Shirt Company in what
was to start a long wandering back and forth, across the states of Ohio,
Pennsylvania and New York, as evidenced by an inter-office memo regarding a
Boos request for assistance with the movement of his pigeons, that ended up on
the desk of Arrow’s top brass in Chicago. It read:
April 12, 1973
Dear Bryan,
I had a call today
from Harold Boos. He was unable to get
to Sherman, and Wrverth was out.
Harold’s questions were: (1) Will
we pay moving costs of his pigeon coops?
(2)Will we pay mileage on the pigeons’ flight to Dayton, and what will
we pay? He asked for $.10 per mile. (3) Flight
insurance is not covered on his annual American Express bill for the pigeons. He wants us to pay that. (4) Finally, he has asked that in as much as
he’ll be going back and forth to Akron quite a bit to return distraught pigeons
to Dayton, (I’m sure you’re familiar
with the return to the roost habits of the creatures.) he is requesting
round trip mileage, and meals, for same.
Also, does this get charged to moving expense, or personal business
expense?
“Frankly Bryan, I think Mr. Boos was under the influence of some heavy
libation- or he’s been smoking some bad grass!”
Signed, Joe Reina
Flying successfully in 1959, from Akron, Ohio, with Bastin/Stassart
pigeons secured from All-American Ted
Woodhall, a young Boos first met upstart, but now nationally known GNEO pit boss and Ohio-Penn Federation
President, Jim Bedell. Fourteen
years later, Boos found himself in Dayton, Ohio, participating in the founding
of the Miami Valley Sportsman Club
along side famous, short-lived Racing
Pigeon Bulletin promulgator, Wayne Reinke, an effort that saw a new club
house, and growth from 6 flying members to over 48, a few years after the next Boos
departure. A year in Syracuse, followed
by 8 years in Rochester, placed Legendary Harry in competition against the best
Leen Boers of Laury McDonnell and the
family of George Lehrs. An early retirement flipped our champion back
to Akron, Ohio, just in time to play a major role in the formation of the long
distance racing life-line, the Ohio-Penn
Racing Pigeon Federation where with visionaries Jack Welling, Jim Timmons, Jim Hazek, Bill Gallik and Sam Badger, Harry,
with bedrock determination, set out to
prevent the demise of the long distance racing in the region.
The Brit: Jeff Horn,
Busshaerts and Flag-Flying
In the late 1970’s, while still on the Arrow payroll in
Dayton, Ohio, Boos began his lifetime fascination with Busshaerts. International pigeon racing phenomenon and British
Champion Jeff Horn, and wife, Marion, had come to the states to visit relatives
in nearby Oxford, Ohio, and of course, it included a stop to Wayne Reinke’s Racing Pigeon Bulletin. A quick invite to Boos, a quick venture
capital call to close friend Bedell, and Boos was on his way to importing 6
pairs of the best Horn Busshaert breeders, all sons and daughters of Jeff’s foundation
stock. (Anyone doubting the quality of
these Horn Busshaerts need go no further than the unmatched Federation racing
record of another great Ohio Busshaert flyer, Mr. Heber Nelson, of nearby
Lisbon.) Over the years, Boos
has developed two distinct lines of Busshaerts; the Newton line for distance, and the Charter Flight line for the 300 mile specials. (His prowess for choosing between long and
short, we will deal with later.)
From this unexpected encounter with the great British
champion, Boos was also introduced first-hand to an explicit explanation of
“flag-flying” to train birds, a ‘eureka moment’, so to speak, and a useful tool
for a traveling sales rep needy for a co-operative wife to sometimes tune the
team. Psychologists tell us that great
salesmen are very results-oriented, and nothing drives them nuts like a goal
that can’t be met, so the flagging pay-off came in Rochester years later, when
a best-laid-plan for winning the big local Futurity was scrapped by bad weather,
and a business commitment had the budding champion away from home for a week,
and boiling inside. But you make your
own luck, or perhaps in this case, the hen of the house crows louder than the
cock, we don’t know for sure, but the visionary’s mad-flagging wife saved the
dream, winning 1st, 2nd and 3rd in a 1700 ypm
sprint race. The goal was met, and Harry
went forward, but now, remembering what got him there.
Sourcing youngsters from 16 breeding pairs, it is now
automatic for Boos to at least break every young bird team to flag-flying for
its benefit to the old bird team, but in his current location in Stow (where he
says they’ll bury him), his second story, dormer loft (garage) sits under a
relaxed forest canopy of stately, oversized oak trees. The trees, as you might expect, are ‘hands
off’, coming under the guidance and auspices of the tough, little lady gardener
of the house. But, the magnificent trees
also added a requirement for patience to the flag training routine, and the smaller
loft reduced the team size, so that now most young-birds are targeted
specifically for the Akron club’s GNEO Futurity race, or as replacements for
the long distance Federation old bird team, where a very successful Harry Boos,
has settled into natural flying so that he can access both the hens and cocks
for his small, but competitive team.
Old Bird Racing Strategy
A pioneering psychiatrist, Dr. Karl Menninger, once said, “Attitudes are more important than facts.” With that kind of thinking guiding him,
Harry’s training for old birds starts 3 weeks prior to the first race, and you
guessed it, flag-flying is at the core of the regimen. During the first week, flag-flying starts at
an hour per day, and by the end of the first week, Harry expects the birds to
be flag-flying strongly, twice a day for 1 hour each time. If needed, 35 mile training tosses are added
for the benefit of the few slow-to-condition springtime porkers, as determined
by how the birds feel in the hand, and act around the loft. The routine changes little the third week,
except that interspersed training tosses are now lengthened to 50 miles for any
of the persistently, overweight nerdy little Busshaerts.
At AU Conventions, instead of just drinking for merriment,
then sleeping it off, an eager and alert Boos learned long ago, from listening
to visiting European champions, the importance of conserving the stamina of
long distance race birds, so his pigeons are set up, and targeted for specific
long races; never is their precious energy squandered in girly, short,
meaningless, early races. Birds are fed
on a standard light to heavy feed program, except that after the Saturday
races, returning racers are fed 20% protein pellets. They hate them, but must eat them. At that
point in the week, the boss is focused strictly on the protein. They have “got to have it”. Barley is fed 100% on Sunday, followed Monday
by a 50% mix of barley and a 16% protein breeder/conditioner feed. On Wednesday and Thursday, birds are fed 100%
breeder/conditioner mix to which peanuts are added only on Thursday evening. The Thursday feeding is fed 1/3 in the
morning and 2/3 in the evening. Total
feed quantity varies with temperature, how they exercise and what day of the
week it is.
In the Champion’s
Medicine Cabinet
Right up front, Harry is aware that the use of medications
is not good if done with too much frequency.
His procedures are consistent and pretty simple. On most race days, the birds come home to
electrolytes. Sunday and Monday are
generally followed up with 4 in 1 in the water.
When not medicating, the race team receives Primalac every other day in
the water, combined with a supplement called ‘Avian Charge 2000’ (from Innovators,
in Texas.) The breeder team gets the
dose 5 days a week. The supplement is a
source of vitamins, minerals, and sea weed, and seems to give the birds
exceptional health, feather, vigor and condition.
“The race is not
always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, for time and
chance enter into all things”.
Ecclesiastes 9:11
This beloved Old Testament injunction was obviously not
intended for something as unimportant in the scheme of things as pigeon racing,
but what could summarize our pigeon racing experience more perfectly? Victory in the pigeon game can’t be dialed
up. You can’t buy victory. In fact, if you think you have it figured
out, just wait a while. Your good
fortune will soon pass. Torment and
doubt will soon return. But, you can
help the situation by stacking as many things in your favor as possible. Genetics, health, motivation, nutrition,
physical condition, rest, experience, wind direction, team size, ad infinitum
are all peripheral issues that in differing combinations help us tilt things in
our favor as good handlers and anticipators, but for guys like Harry, consistent
long term winning starts and ends with securing the bird’s mind. I’m not talking to rookies here. Despite what some colorful personalities in
the sport say they can do, you can’t pick up an unfamiliar bird in an auction
and look at its eye, or at its butt or its wing or tail or anything else and
know it is going to win. You can be impressed by its beauty, athleticism, parentage,
or feel a sense of exciting anticipation with it in your hands, but beyond that
everything is an opinion. Pigeons win in
all shapes and sizes. The trump card is
what’s in its head. The only way to improve
the odds for this lack of transparency is to breed from stock that already has this
dominate inclination to break quickly for home. Look around you and find out where it is. Go buy some.
That part’s a no-brainer.
Regarding conformation, Harry has some strong opinions that
have proven effective for him over the years.
For one, he’s a breast man. He likes
pecs in a pigeon! He calls it the bird’s
motor. In his personal studies, he has learned
that the major pectoral muscle is used to lower the wing, and the lesser
pectoral muscle is used to raise the wing.
He believes strongly that good short and middle distance pigeons have
excellent major pectoral muscle, but that long distance birds have something
more significant by way of the lesser pectoral muscle and with sensitive finger
dexterity, Harry can feel it, perceiving it as a wider keel. He likes it when he feels it, and selects for
this trait in his breeding of long distance stock.
“When I was a child,
my mother said to me”, “If you become a soldier, you’ll be a general. If you become a monk, you’ll end up as the
pope.” “Instead, I became a painter, and
wound up as Picasso.” Pablo
Picasso
 |
| Left: Harry Boos; right: Jim Bedell |
