Oakgrove Green-Legged Hatch
The story of the Sweater is told by breeding legend Rafael "Nene" Abello himself in one video featured in Facebook - that EUGENE BROWN (using his Oakgrove Yellow Legged Hatch bloodline) and CAROL NESMITH (using his Sweater bloodline) had partnered before in breeding their bloodlines together to come out with superior warriors in the pit they called their breeding pure yellow legged hatch at that time that gave them numerous Championships in the USA and even abroad. In the ensuing years, CAROL NESMITH became very popular with his POSSUM SWEATERS, while EUGENE BROWN became popular with his yellow leg and green leg OAKGROVE HATCHES. The story goes that Eugene Brown may have bred and crossed the yellow leg Stuart line with the Docs to come out with the Oakgrove Hatch bloodline. His original Stuart line actually came from the lines of Clarence Stewart. They just renamed into Stuart line to differentiate their breeding bloodlines. Way back in the year 1980, the original imported Oakgrove Hatches of my breeding friend and mentor, Kuya Joe Alimbuyuguen, produced green legged hatches. Kuya Joe actually bought and imported from the US, a Yellow Legged OAKGROVE HATCH broodcock, which was then 5 years old already, and is one of the original broodcocks of EUGENE BROWN, and also acquired 4 olive-green legged OAKGROVE HATCH pullets. In 1994, when EUGENE BROWN died in the U.S.A, Kuya Joe acquired again EUGENE BROWN's same family of OAKGROVE HATCH bloodlines - where he got the "19-straight wins" blood line or family - where 19 stag brothers of OAKGROVE HATCHES won in all their derby fights in the U.S.A. These were bred by Kuya Joe and Kuya Danny, who are very strict selectors of breeding materials and expert breeders. Kuya Danny was notorious as he would not hesitate to cull several pens of very expensive imported bloodlines from the USA - if these are below his breeding standards! These were the origins of our DRAGON WARRIOR OAKGROVE HATCH family of gamefowls! These became the foundation bloodline of our YELLOW LEGGED OAKGROVE HATCH - Captain line, and the GREEN LEGGED OAKGROVE HATCH - Vandamme line, which has been bred purely and perfected by our friend and mentor, Kuya Joe for more than 36 years and which we continue to breed at the DRAGON WARRIOR GAMEFARM in Lipa City, Batangas since 1990, when breeding gamefowls started as one of our passions in life.
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Other sources indeed confirm that the Oakgrove Yellow Legged Hatch originated from Eugene Brown of Missisippi, USA.
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A few years after winning the WSD (2X) on 1995 and 1996, the Blackwater Farms of Carol Nesmith still advertised them as Yellow Legged Hatch and Green Legged Hatch. The same bloodline with the Oakgrove Hatch of Eugene Brown, Carol Nesmith's former breeding and fighting partner. If you look at the old gamecock magazines, you'll find their numerous championships and Cocker of the Year (COTY) Awards at Sunset and other big pits in the U.S. using these Oakgrove Yellow Legged and Green Legged Hatches!
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From gamefowl breeding sources, it was said that: "if they continued to call it "YLH Oakgrove type," the bulk of Filipino customers will get them from Oakgrove Gamefarm of Eugene Brown. Sweaters made their fame in the Philippines because the World Slasher’s Derbies 1995 and 1996 back to back winners were named "Sweaters" instead of "Sweater-yellow legged hatch" or "whatever." If they were named "whatever" , the name will stick too. Since then, buying frenzy begun, and most light colored, yellow leg, and peacombs with white streamers in the U.S. suddenly became Sweaters. There's a time when 60% more or less of the entries in the Philippines. were fielding roosters called sweaters. As a result most of the winners are sweaters, and most of the loosers are sweaters too. But in the U.S., sweaters didn't become popular in the pit until recently."
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According to Carol Nesmith himself from a portion of his write-up about Blackwater Farms in Alabama, "When I purchased the Sweaters from Odis, he said that Sonny thought that the Sweaters were bred out and could not longer compete in the tough competitions anymore, but the young trio matured into a wonderful looking fowl. The cock, a light red with white streamers in the tail, pea comb and yellow legged and very good station and good conformation with lots of plumage. The hens, a buff and straw color with black trail feathers looking a lot like a Roundhead but with better station and more plumage."
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" I didn’t want to breed brother and sister, so I sent the Sweater cock to Mr. Eugene Brown of Oak Grove Farms to breed to his yellow leg Hatch since at that time I was fighting with Mr. Brown and his son Gene in a partnership. I had the two hens left to breed at my farm and so I went to Mr. Jumper to get something to breed to these two hens. Everyone knows this wonderful gentleman and while I was there Johnny gave me some information about these Sweater chickens. Mr. Jumper said that Sweater McGinnis (from whom these chickens got their name) needed some cocks to fill a main at the pit in Hot Springs, AR. I forgot the year that Mr. Jumper said this main was fought but anyway, he said the late Mr. Harold Brown of Red Fox Farm let Mr. Sweater have or sold him cocks that were half Boston Roundhead and half Mclean Hatch. Some of these were yellow leg and some were green leg."