Hello Apple Cup breeders!
We are receiving a lot of calls on whether or not you can send birds yet. We dediced this year to not accept any birds until March due to our unpredictable weather. Last year we opened the gates in February but the weather proved to be hard on the birds and made it miserable for us to try to take care of the few we did receive. Most breeders do not have birds ready until after February so in the interest of the the birds, our own sanity, we decided this year to hold off until the first week in March. This proved to be a good decision because as of a week ago it looked like we were going to have a early spring, now we are covered in snow. Good news is that the snow is quickly melting and everything will be nice and dry and sunny when we do start accepting birds in March.
The earliest you can put birds in the mail is March 4th, this is a Monday. PLEASE, mail only on Mondays and Tuesdays. We have a small rural post office and if you mail past Tuesday there is a very good chance that your birds will not be delivered until Monday since our post office is closed on Saturday. By mailing on Monday or Tuesday at the latest, we receive all the birds on Wednesdays and Thursdays which allows us to start new birds, which are quarantened according to the week they are received, on medication at the same time. All birds are vaccinated for PMV and Paratyphoid and given a canker tablet the day they arrive, along with a chip ring.
We changed our 250 mile station this year, Paisley, OR just proved to be the Bermuda Triangle of racing pigeon stations so we decided we had to make a change if we are going to continue hosting this race. Our local combine will use this new station starting in April. We will observe closely and if all goes well for them, we will have the confidence to do the same. If it does not go well, we will find another location.
At the moment we are sitting at 500 reserved perches and over 125 breeders, that number is growing daily and will continue to grow up to the last birds we accept through May. Do not miss out on one of the larger One Loft Races in 2019!
Thanks to all of you who have supported us going in to our fourth year, and to those of you who are new to our race this year. In 2018 we logged more training miles (1,900) than any other race in North America.....at the Apple Cup we are not afraid to train!
Rick & Olga
For those of you who won $600 or more we sent out the 1099s on Monday, they should hit your mailbox this week.
Thanks to everyone who has signed up for 2019, previous and new participants. Currently we are sitting at 113 breeders entered and about 450 perches reserved with new breeders entering daily and many previous participants who plan to enter but have not signed up as of yet that we have corresponded with. We will be accepting birds March through May, this includes replacements and we expect 750-800 birds.
If any of you have a question please do not hesitate to give us a call!
254-247-9504
wcspinner@aol.com
Merry belated Christmas everyone, and if we don't post before the first of the year Happy New Year to everyone!
As most of you already know, we decided to go with our same format that we used this year which is $100 perch, $300 entry fee after activation. Our payout posted is based upon 1,000 birds, any birds over 1,000 will have their portion added directly to 1st Prize. Click on the payout tab to check out our payout for 2019.
We decided to cut out the Paisley, OR station for 2019. This station has bit us in the butt two years in a row, both years being set up to get over 50% of the birds to the final race, if we could just get through Paisley. Last year we fired our driver after having a smash at Paisley, hauled the last two races ourselves and had great results. This year hauled all the races ourselves, got to Paisley and released on a nice sunny day and thought we would get most of the birds on the day for certain, and still had the same results as the year prior. Then on the final race got 82% on the day and 90% overall return rate. Does not make sense to have a smash at 267 miles two years in a row, but we can have such great results on the final race. We give up on Paisley, time to make a change!
For 2019 we will be flying out of Chiloquin, OR for our 250 mile station. Our 350 mile station will be at the Juniper Hotel which is 35 miles south of Klamath Falls, OR, 6 miles past Mocdel, CA. These two new stations are directly south of us off of HWY 97 which runs from us here all the way down to Weed, CA. Hopefully these two new stations will give us the results we want, more importantly the results our customers expect!
Enter the race that logged over 1,900 miles in training alone in 2018, more than any other race in North America! At the Apple Cup, we are not afraid to train!
Hey everyone, just wanted to say thanks to everyone who has been asking questions and spreading the word on the Apple Cup Million Dollar Race. We are going to be featured in the next Racing Pigeon Digest that comes out and look for our full page ad on the race next year. Take a few minutes to look over our new rules, about us, and our payout for 2019 by clicking on those tabs.
Most of the winners have been paid, if you owe us a W-9, get it to us. We have sent out most of the entry fee refunds then ran out of checks. We got some more and hopefully will have the rest of you reimbursed by next week.
Most of the birds have been shipped. One last chance to those of you who know you still have birds. I have called and emailed, you have until Friday to let us know if you want the bird back or not.
We worked on inputting the addresses of those we planned on shipping birds back to today last night and in to the early AM through the USPS Click N Ship site and when we went to pay before printing the site froze up on us. This happened last year as well, very frustrating. So we went down and talked to our postmaster who agreed to let us dump 40 boxes off on her, she even called in another clerk to accomodate us. However, after spending time on the phone with the Click N Ship folks this morning, then prepping boxes and manually filling out 40 express labels, we came to the realization that there just was not enough time left in the day to get the birds boxed up and down to the post office and give them enough time to process each shipment before the express truck shows up in the afternoon. Now that 90% of the work is done it is just a matter of putting the right birds in the right boxes and getting them to the post office, which we will do tomorrow.
We are only shipping to those who won money on the final race this week, simple deduction of shipping from winnings. Had we thought about it we would of also contacted those who won money on the 267 mile race, totally slipped our minds. We will ship back the remainder next Monday, providing you have sent your return shipping fees which is $60 for the first bird, $10 each additional. Some of you have already sent return shipping to our PO Box, we will mail yours out next Monday.
Once we have the birds shipped out we will send out prize money minus shipping, providing we have a W-9 on you. If we owe you a entry fee refund this check will be separate from the prize money check if you won prizes so you do not have to pay taxes on the refund portion.
Thanks for everyone's patience.
