The birds have been loft flown yesterday and again today. We were expected to have rain today which is about to come through soon. Wind today is about 14 mph out of the north and we have seen about a 15 degree temperature drop from yesterday to today. Our plan is to road train tomorrow, and allow the birds to rest Sunday, and race on Monday. The weather looks to be the best on Monday with sunny skies and very little wind. There have been a few payments returned from fanciers for activation payments. If any outstanding payments are not resolved before Sunday we will sell the birds.
Congratulations to High Flight Farm and McLaughlin Lofts for having the 1st bird in the clock and to all the breeders on the 1st drop.We had perfect weather for the 1st race yesterday, with the majority of the birds coming right on line. There were only a few groups that came back from the north. Moving forward, the next 2 days we will have 15/20 mph winds from the South on Thursday and then switching to the North on Friday. If this holds, we will train on Saturday and plan to race again on Monday. Hopefully wind will not be so strong Friday and we can train that day as well. The Knockout Competition has begun with the 1st race. The top 33% of birds that have returned will stay in the Knockout, the rest will be eliminated. The top 33% will be calculated based on what was shipped to the first race. Based on our calculations, the top 732 birds will stay in the competition.
There were quite a few birds that were waiting for us this morning when we went out to the loft around 8:00 am. These birds have been trapped into a separate section to allow for evaluation. In total there were 28 birds that returned today. The weather today was a mix of what seemed like 3 seasons with cloudy skies and light rain this morning, the sun coming out late morning and temperature warming a bit, only for the wind to pick up and the clouds to return this afternoon. As of now the activation fees are due. Activations will be due by Friday 9/30. It is highly suggested that if you are mailing a payment, that it be mailed using a tracking service such as Priority Mail (2-3 days service, $9.00 for Flat Rate Envelope), Priority Mail Express, UPS 2nd Day Air, UPS Next Day Air. We will be looking to have the 1st race by the end of the week. Any bird(s) not paid for by Friday will be sold and will become property of the Buyer. Please remember this is an all or nothing activation. Addressing a few questions, we have received over the last 2 days:1. We will not remove birds due to a breeder not wanting to activate. If you choose not to activate, then the bird will be sold and become property of the buyer. 2. There are processing fees for paying with a credit card or PayPal. The Credit Card Fee is 3.7% of whatever your total is (ex: $1200 x 3.7%=$45.00), making your total $1245.00. Paypal rates are slightly higher. 3. PayPal "Friends & Family" has not been working for most people that have tried to use it. I am assuming PayPal has blocked it due to the account being a business account. IF you pay PayPal without using the links on the website and select "Goods or Services" as an option it will deduct the fees from your payment making the amount received less than $1200.00. If this happens the payment will be returned, and you will be asked to pay using the links on the website. Paying with a Credit Card or PayPal is convenience offered for breeders and Hoosier Classic is not responsible for any processing fees. I will be in the office tomorrow all day starting at 8:00 am Central Standard Time to take payments over the phone for those wishing to pay with credit card. If you wish to pay over the phone the office number is 219-733-0011.If you will be sending a payment via the Post Office, UPS, Fedex, please use the following address:Hoosier Classic10258 S 1150 WWanatah, IN 46390Again, I cannot stress enough how important it is for payment to be in by Friday, so please, please, use some type of quicker service rather than the regular mail that is unreliable. I know not everyone wants to pay processing fees, so $9.00 with the post office for priority mail service with a tracking number is worth the cost and less expensive than the processing fees.
The birds were released this morning at 7:10 am for the activation race from Crawfordsville, Indiana. Ron & Josh Deisher found us a great spot down there to release the birds in a wide-open space. The birds took off well for the most part with one group heading east, then coming back west before leaving out of sight to the Northeast.The first group of birds arrived to, the loft at a faster time than we expected, with them arriving from the west. This is troublesome because we fly a South - North course. After arriving back to the loft, the birds (almost every one of them) would continue to fly for several minutes. They were very jumpy for some reason. We did not see any hawks today that would usually cause this behavior, however that doesn't mean they were not around. We continued to see birds trickle in all day until around 5:30pm and most of them arrived from the Northwest. We are confident we will see more birds in the morning. Our temperatures were very cool today, as they were yesterday which is a big change. Earlier in the week it was in the mid 80's, so we are hopeful that the cool temperatures will help the birds. As of tonight, we have 1989 birds that have returned.As of now activation fees are due. As stated before, we do not want to hold up the first race so if everyone could please start to send in activations. You can pay using the PayPal link on the website, or by credit card. There are fees that apply to both of these options. IF you choose to mail a payment, PLEASE send it Priority Mail. This service will be roughly $9.00 but should be here in 2-3 days and will have a tracking number. We will be looking to have the 1st race by next week, so please do not wait until the end of next week to mail because it will not be here in time. Payment can be mailed to:Hoosier Classic Race10258 S 1150 WWanatah, IN 46390Click to Pay Using PayPal LinkCredit Card payments can be made by calling the office at 219-733-0011Saturday 9/24, someone will be in the office limited hours. Regular office hours are Monday - Friday, 8:30 am - 4:30 pm CST.
Today a hand inventory was done for all the birds before the activation race tomorrow. The following birds were found to have either a non working chip ring or no chip ring:Linda Loft - 806 LUNanez Loft - 7031Aladdin Loft - 5 ALIFThese birds have had their chip rings corrected however they WILL NOT SHOW on the inventory today. For an activation race you do not need a basketing list for wincompanion. You do need one for Benzing regardless if it is a training or a race. (This is where it gets complicated). In order for a Hand Inventory to be live, we had to use an old basketing list from September 2nd. Because of that, any bird that did not scan on 9/02 will not clock because it was "not on the basketing list." The following birds have been found to not be on the basketing list, so they will not show on the inventory today, HOWEVER, they will be manually added to the basketing list to allow them to clock tomorrow should they return from activation. (Let me just say that it is quite difficult to explain how Benzing and Wincompanion work to be compatible and how both systems operate.) Moving forward for ANY races, the birds will all be basketed by hand and a basketing list uploaded for Benzing & Wincompanion. Because this activation is not considered a race, we wanted to show a live inventory vs. a private one. The following birds are here, healthy, and going to activation tomorrow, but did not show on the inventory today:KRL - 207VK - 5949MOJO - 17BEKO - 8We have also made contact with breeders that have had injured birds and will be removed. With all of that being said, we are scheduled to have the activation race tomorrow. Keep your fingers crossed that the weather cooperates and we can finally get this going. Again we would like to have the next race within 1 week, so Please, Please Please, be ready to send in activation fees if you are using the mail system. We will send more information out tomorrow with options for payments.Best of Luck to everyone, we are excited to get this series moving and with everyone's help of getting payments in on time we will stay on schedule for the final race. Jim & Kelly
Yesterday's activation was cancelled due to storm clouds moving across the course. During our drive back about 40 miles from the loft the skies were very dark and we felt we made the right decision. However, by noon all had passed and it turned out to be a beautiful afternoon. Moving forward - We are training today. There is a possibility of rain tomorrow as well as strong winds on Wednesday & Thursday. Hopefully we can get activation in no later than Friday. We have received several payments for activation fees, and thank you to those who have sent them in already. IF you pay activation before the actual activation race, any birds that do not return from the activation will have their activation fees refunded. We will need to have the first race no later than October 2nd/3rd to stay on track for the final race. Keep in mind that the race date has already been moved once.We are asking fanciers to start preparing to send activation payments in as quickly as possible once we get the activation race in. We usually have to wait 2 weeks for all of the money to come in before the first official race, and this year we would like to not have to wait that long. We are asking fanciers to please plan on having your payments into the office by October 2nd. This will give everyone two weeks from today. Again, if you pay and your bird does not return from activation we will refund the activation fee for the bird(s). Please understand we do not expect anyone to pay before activation, we are only asking that you plan to get payments ready to mail by the end of the week/early next week. We do not recommend that you choose to mail payments regular mail. The postal service can be slow, and could potentially loose the payment. We strongly recommend that if you plan to "mail" a payment that you use some type of quicker service with a tracking number; ex: Priority Mail (Approx. $8-$9 Flat Rate Envelope), Priority Mail Express ($26.95 Flat Rate Envelope), Certified Mail (this is not an expedited service). We also have PayPal & Credit Card Processing (Fees Apply For Both)We would like to Thank Everyone for their patience. The weather this year has been difficult and unfortunately we can not control the weather. We are about 8-9 days behind on our activation race due to the weather compared to previous seasons. This race only exists because of all of you, Thank you very much for your support.
The activation race for today has been cancelled. There looks to be a storm straight west of the release point that is moving east towards the course line home. We will take no chances of the birds getting caught up in this storm. We will continue to review the weather for tomorrow & Tuesday. The weather is changing almost hourly right as we continue to monitor different weather apps.
With the weather we have coming this week we feel tomorrow will be the best day for the activation race. This decision was made at 4:00 pm today after spending the early afternoon studying the weather for here at the loft as well as along the course. Monday was the day I wanted to do the activation, but there is rain at the release point on Monday. After that we have 2 days of rain here at the loft and then 2 days of 15-20 mph strong wind days. The birds have had 22 training tosses and have had a lot of time on the wing. We hope to release by 7:30 am. If the weather is questionable or we have to hold the birds due to fog then the activation race will be cancelled, and the birds brought back.Good Luck to everyone and let's hope for a good trainer tomorrow. On another note, Congratulations to our friends at Hi-Cal Connection & Two-Be-Won for having a great finish in the AfrikaPro Race. Congratulations to all the top finishers!
