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LOFT MANAGERS REPORT PRE FINAL RACE



With two weeks to go before the final race, we have trained Monday at 80 miles,
Tuesday at 60 miles, we will go to 90 miles on Wednesday, 60 miles on Thursday, and 120 miles on Friday! a very serious training programme indeed! They will then be rested and loft flown on Saturday and Sunday 4th and 5th followed by 35 mile training Spins for the following Monday Tuesday Wednesday and Thursday, which will ensure another great race for the final on Sunday Sept 12th.
The birds will then be security checked and marked on Friday the 10th as always everyone is welcome to attend this, and indeed give a hand, the birds will then be sent up on the transporter Saturday morning for the race from Hexham, approx 250 miles or indeed 400 kilometers, on Sunday 12th Sept.
Just as last year the loft is only 30% full which is 300 paid entries, plus reserves plus Venturers.
Almost identical to last years figures, indeed so the same as last year we will pay out 30% of the advertised prizes as per the rules.
However just like last year we would not be happy in paying the First prizewinner of this great race Just £9000! so we intend to bump up the FIRST PRIZE TO £21,000 for 2010, by using the income of the secondary auctions of returned birds as per 2009.
This gives everyone in the race at least one chance to win a considerable amount of money.
We can not guarantee that everyone who attends the race will win a lump of money! However as always we can guarantee that everyone will get a fair crack of the whip, and will have a great day out here at the Europa under the big top Marquee. As always food drink and the company of like minded pigeon men will be available from 9am Sunday.


LATE HOTEL BOOKINGS,
5 ROOMS LEFT CALL NOW IF YOU WANT THEM
JUST £69 PER PERSON BED BREAKFAST AND EVENING DINNER DANCE
FOR SUNDAY SEPT 12th.

Still Plenty of Birds for sale at £100 each

Best of luck to you all

The Europa Team

07771 343205
07900 131592
07810 323827


LOFT MANAGERS REPORT HOT SPOT 5
After a week of really rubbish weather where we had to miss a lot of training, the birds were security marked and loaded onto the transporter Thursday night for the 160 mile last hot spot. Then a 0230 hrs start saw the sun come up by the time we got to Stafford and a super clear blue sky and tail wind by the time we arrived at Leyland at 0650 with a great weather forecast for the whole country for the whole day, we liberated the 884 birds at 0700. The clever money was predicting the birds would make a mile a minute, but for once the gathered crowd at the loft were disappointed and had to drink some more coffee, until 0950 when the first batch of just 12 birds were seen very high up diving for the loft, these were just 200 yards in front of another batch of 35 and these were just 500 yards in front of a batch of 150! As the first batch of 12 hit the concrete trapping area the second batch pitched right behind them, and as these were trapping the third batch of 150 landed and all these birds, 197 in total were all in and recorded on the clock in 64 seconds flat!!!!!!!!!!!!! We then had a gap of 3 minutes until they started coming again in batches of about 20 at a time non stop for ten minutes by which time we had over 600 birds on the clock By night fall all but 50 of the birds were home. YES INDEED ANOTHER GREAT RACE,
Which has set us up nicely for the main race on Sunday Sept 12th as can be seen from the result we have over 100 birds still for sale at £100 each (all prefixed BFS) for those who have not got a bird in the race or indeed those that would like to top up their team, these are a great gamble!
Do not forget entry to the loft site on race day this year, is free of charge, we also have a few rooms left in our 4 star hotel at £69 per person which includes bed breakfast and dinner dance for the Sunday night. However we have no rooms for Saturday Night, but you can of course make your own plans in Cardiff for Saturday and join us at the Copthorne for Sunday.
FURTHER DETAILS ON THE MAIN RACE EVENTS, WILL BE POSTED IN THE NEXT DAY OR SO ON THE WEBSITE.
www.europaclassic.co.uk
Best of Luck to you all
The Europa Team


LOFT MANAGERS REPORT HOTSPOT 4

Again with a bad forecast for Friday we took the decision to race a day early on Thursday, Birds were Security checked mid day Wednesday and then put on the Transporter for the night, with drinkers on, and away on the journey North at 0345 hrs!

The weather forecast was for a day of Sunny intervals and a head wind, but as we were going up the Motorway we had almost total cloud cover with just a very brief sunny interval every half an hour or so.
In fact it was quite gloomy by the time we got to Nantwich, so we had no chance of going any further especially as the forecast was for a band of rain to reach Cardiff by 2pm and hang around for a day and a half! So with this in mind we liberated in Nantwich at 0710.
The Birds took a few minutes to clear and were then on their way back to the land of song!
The clever money was saying the birds should get down in just less than 3 hours for the 110 mile Journey, and sure enough at 0958 a batch of 75 birds were seen dropping in from the North by the gathered crowd at the loft, and trapped very quickly as they were joined by another batch just as these first ones were going in, and then a steady stream of birds up until the rain started at 3pm by which time only thirty odd birds were missing.

Another very successful race for all concerned and congratulations to the winners (see separate result).

The final hotspot scheduled for next Friday will be flown from Leyland 160 miles on the first good day of next week.
The reason for this being, other than wait till Friday and have to chance coming short again,

WE WILL GO TO LEYAND THE FIRST GOOD WEATHER DAY NEXT WEEK AFTER MONDAY.

So for those interested in pooling please get your details in early as we will be ready to run this final hot spot at 12 hours notice!

As for the final race from Hexham the date is now set for

SUNDAY SEPTEMBER 12th

A few reasons for this,
Firstly quite a few of our very good customers have said they are not happy with the idea of going with another organization,
Secondly plenty of others have said they can not come to watch the race on a Saturday for the reason of racing their own birds,
Thirdly there is a major cricket event in Cardiff on Saturday which means all hotel accommodation is at premium rates!

FOR THESE REASONS THE MAIN RACE IS NOW ON SUNDAY


Again our Hotel of choice for this year’s race is the Copthorne Hotel.


Rooms for Saturday night are very expensive so we are not even going to quote a price for that!
The rate for the Sunday is £69 per person based on 2 people sharing a twin or double room, this price is inclusive of bed breakfast and evening dinner and dance! So once again this is great value, but be warned we only have 30 rooms left so get on the phone right now if you want them!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Single rooms are £99 per person

For all our guests this year hotel or otherwise, admission to the main race this year is free of charge!!!!!!

However food and drinks will be supplied to visitors at cost.

HOTEL BOOKING HOTLINE
07900 131592
07810 323827


LOFT MANAGERS REPORT HOTSPOT 3

The remaining 946 birds were loaded on to the state of the art Geraldy/Mercedes Transporter on Thursday evening, drinkers on and rested up for the night, ready for a 4 am start for the driver, the weather forecast was not great so we would have to be careful!
on the way up the M5 \ M6 route the weather was Dawning into a lovely summers day up to Birmingham, but by the time the transporter had reached Stafford it was very grey and total cloud cover, by the time we had got to Stoke it was raining and indeed rained continuously right to Nantwich! By which time it was 0730. With the forecast being for rain for the rest of the day in the north west of England, We decided to try and get a race from a shorter distance, so went west into the Welsh border region, firstly to Whitchurch, where the weather was still not fit to liberate into! and then heading south towards Shrewsbury on the A49 where our many phone calls were telling us the weather was clear and fine with a strong tail wind, and sure enough just before the Transporter reached Shrewsbury the Sun came out and the weather cleared, the Transporter was Immediately pulled onto an open Field and the birds were liberated just before 9am.The Guys back at the loft were warned this was surely a mile a minute day for the 95 mile Journey ahead,
Sure enough 100 minutes later the gathered crowed at the loft saw the first batch of 100 birds dive out of the sky straight onto the trap as they literally ran into the lofts and the awaiting feed! These were quickly followed by batches of about 50 at a time as it seemed to rain pigeons for 5 minutes at the end of which 95% of the birds were home! And some of the crowed were indeed amazed at the spectacle most of which commented they had never seen pigeons trap like it ever before in their life! Not just a few, but hundreds and hundreds knocking the back of the trap out!!
Indeed it is now obvious to all that these birds need to go farther to test them but of course we can not do this without some decent weather. However we will now be increasing the food input of the birds, and increasing the distance of the daily training, also if the weather permits we will train one day this week to Nantwich to make up for the fact we had to go short for the hotspot just gone that was indeed scheduled for Nantwich.
Congratulations to the prize and pool winners this week see separate result for full details.
As from next weeks hot spot all birds that have not been paid for will be pre fixed BFS which of course stands for ‘Bird For Sale’ so if you have not paid for your reserve birds, beware as from next week we will be actively trying to sell these birds to others, which will include advertising them for sale! So you have been warned guys!

IF YOU DON’T PAY FOR THEM, YOU CAN BE SURE SOMEONE ELSE WILL!!

Best of Luck to you all

The Europa Team.


LOFT MANAGERS REPORT HOT SPOT 2

With a very bad forecast for the Scheduled race day of Friday August 6th, we took the decision to go a day early on the Thursday, which dawned as promised with clear blue skies and a tail wind, The drive up in the transporter was uneventful and the birds were liberated at Shrewsbury 90 miles, in perfect conditions with a blustery tail wind at 0830.
Back at the loft the gathered fanciers were warned these birds could make a mile a minute, and as they were so disappointing last week the birds had been fed well short of the usual all you can eat this week! To wake them up so to speak, so don’t blink or you might miss them! but at 0957 as most of the guys were around the tea earn asking where the milk was, a shadow flashed onto the loft hard stand as a group of 100 birds dived from the sky straight onto the trapping patio and virtually smashed the back of the trap out! these were followed by another group of 100 who were trapping just as the end of the first batch was going in, then it literally rained pigeons for the next 10 minutes with 760 of the 1025 sent birds being home in that time, these were followed by another 200 that arrived over the rest of the day, however it looks like we have lost about 50 birds, but on the bright side that is over 95% returns to go to next weeks third hotspot, congratulations to all prize and pool money winners see result for details.
The birds now look like they are ready to face the more serious work ahead as we go across the Cheshire Gap next week for the first time, and start to put some more serious distance on them and indeed stretch them out a bit.
See you at the loft Next week for the next instalment.
Best of luck to you all
The Europa Team






LOFT MANAGERS REPORT
End of July 2010

Once again we are at the first young bird race in another Europa Classic Series,
Before we get into that we should run through our targets for this year which are the same every year and indeed should be the standard that all one loft races aspire to. Although to my Knowledge the Europa Classic is the only race in Europe that gets any where near these figures on a regular basis,

Which are as follows.

We aim to get 90% of the youngsters we were sent at the start of this season (1278) home from the 20 mile training stage, this we did yet again this year!

1150 birds still in the loft at the 20 mile stage.

We aim to get 90% of these into the first hot spot race! That equates to 1035 birds,
This year we have again achieved this by sending 1048 to the first race!

The rest of our targets are

To get 90% of these to the second Hot spot Race that would be 930 birds

To get 90% of these to the third Hot Spot Race that would be 840 birds

To get 90% of these to the fourth Hot Spot Race that would be 760 birds

To get 90% of these to the fifth Hot Spot Race that would be 690 birds

Then to get 90% of these to the Final Race that would be 620 or about half of the original entry.

We Basketted up the 1048 birds for the first hotspot Thursday night, for their first night on the transporter, drinkers on and closed down for the night it was a 0400 start for the Transporter driver who arrived at Ludlow 60 miles at 0630 Friday, the weather was clear and dry with 20 miles plus visibility, but with total cloud cover and light variable winds, the forecast was for it to start raining by the end of the morning! so with this in mind the birds were liberated at 0645 it was no surprise that the birds took 5 minutes to clear the site with such a heavy sky, but after 5 minutes they were away, on the journey home,
the transporter driver saw a pack of 150 pigeons flying south over Hereford when he was there and then just 6 miles from home saw 2 bunches of 70 pigeons in each racing up the M4 motorway!
He then phoned the loft to ask if any birds were home yet, and was told no and informed the guys waiting at the loft that 140 of them were just along the motorway and predicted they would be home in five minutes at 0822!
Sure enough at 0823 the waiting fanciers at the loft shouted here they are! as a batch of 70 were seen diving for the loft just as these were about to land they were joined by a second batch of 70, and they all went in together with over 100 birds recorded in less than a minute, these were followed by bunches of about 20 at a time with 400 birds recorded in just 10 minutes! Things then slowed up considerably with birds arriving in twos and threes for the rest of the day and indeed they took all day to come with 1017 birds recorded by nightfall.
The actual race winner is the ever present Paul Bamford who of course has a great record in this and indeed other One Loft Races, one of a growing band of fanciers that do not race from their own loft but just specialize in the One Loft Scene, and his wonderful team of stock birds are quality selected for producing one loft winners! This latest hot spot winner is again bred for the job being a Grand Child of Edd sittners Bosua Ace pigeon of 2007 in the Europa Classic! Blood will tell as they say.
Best of luck to you all for next weeks hotspot, which might be again from 60 miles as a lot of the birds made hard work of it this week, and another sixty miler might be advisable before we move on, so watch this space as they say.

The Europa Team








LOFT MANAGERS REPORT
Saturday July 17th

Well the old bird race has turned out to be a total disaster! And it is time for us to try and make sense of what has gone on, and this is our view for what its worth.

But first of all the result

Firstly congratulations to GHS Syndicate on winning the Europa 500 with the only bird in race time, the following is a list of the birds that have returned outside of race time.

2. Thailand Tigers GB09N19578
3. Rainstorm Boys WHU0801867
4. P Goodright & Ptnr WHU08B01084
5. GHS Syndicate GB09Z58664
6. Unpaid venturer GB09F26454

No pool birds in race time so all £2000 in pools will be returned to owners as a credit to activate young birds, pool young birds or as a cash refund on request.

The £9000 first prize goes to GHS Syndicate with WHU09N05719 that also won
3rd Open Welsh Grand National a fine performance but not quite up our 1st National of last year but very creditable all the same.

2nd prize of £2000 3rd prize of £1000 4th to 10th prizes of £500 each and 11th to 20th prizes of £250 each which totals £9000 will go into 3 nomination prizes of
1st £4000
2nd £3000
3rd £2000
To be flown for in next years old bird race, these additional prizes for the 2011 old bird race will only be open to those who had birds in the old bird race of 2010, and of course will be free to enter nominations for those involved, full details are to follow.

Now why the hell was it such a bad race? Don’t get me wrong if I was offered 3rd National at the start I would gladly have taken that! but for the National to get only 4 birds in 4 days is just not acceptable, I never have nor never will get involved in race controller and convoyer bashing! it’s a thankless task at the best of times, and lets remember it was not just the Welsh National that let go in Thurso that morning, but also the London North Road Combine the Kent Combine and the Derby and Nottingham Federation, needless to say they all had shocking returns LNRC none on the day and only 30 odd on the second day from almost 1000 birds a real killer race all round.
None quite as bad as the Welsh National but we are probably the worst located of all.
HIND SIGHT IS WONDERFUL THING AS THEY SAY AND ITS NO GOOD TAKING A DEEP BREATH AND SAYING THEY SHOULD NEVER HAVE BEEN UP 2 DAYS LATER!
Anyway us like any other loft enter a race entrust our birds to convoyers race controllers and the British weather, and hope for the best, but as we all know sometimes you hit a smash race and this was one of those. The fact we have one bird reported in Lerwick on the Shetland Islands has nothing to do with and weather in the south of Scotland it was just one of those crazy unexplainable Smash races!
However for a number of years now, North road racing into Wales has been very hard at the distance not helped I am sure by the shrinking number of birds on that route.
That not withstanding it is probably time for us to have a change! And with this in mind negotiations are already under way with South road organizations with a view to be flying South in 2011 this radical departure for the Europa Classic YB and Europa 500 OB will also coincide with new management for 2011 which will see Derek Nicholls Relinquish control of the Business to a new management structure, and a new Loft Manager in charge of the daily running of the place! While he spends more time away from home in particular at the racing lofts he is involved with in Belgium and Yorkshire.
The young bird race of 2011 onwards will be South Road but of the same distance,
that being 240 miles Approx but over the English Channel, the old bird race will be of about 350 miles from Tours or somewhere similar, the reason is we really do not want to run races where we have a load of visitors for the main race and you just don’t see any birds on the day! it’s great when it works like last years Thurso where they tumbled in from 500 miles but as we have seen this year you can take a real bashing from that distance! so we think 350 miles is long enough to test them without risking another smash race, this also helps people when they select birds to send to the race I am sure it will in the future become clear, that you want a classic middle distance racer not a sprinter not a distance bird but a specialist middle distance bird to win the Europa! Whether it be 240 miles for youngsters or 350 miles for old birds anyway this is the vision that will be taken forward by the new management team, who will hope to carry with them all the existing Europa Customers, and hopefully a lot of new ones as well. All inspired by the challenge of wining classic big money races while competing for National Honors over the English Channel. To home here at Cardiff the capitol of Wales.

WE WOULD NOW ASK ANYONE WITH CONSTRUCTIVE SUGGESTIONS FOR
THIS NEW WAY FORWARD TO SEND THEIR VIEWS TO US BY E MAIL
europa.classic@btinternet.co
BEST REGARDS
THE EUROPA TEAM


THE 2010 YOUNG BIRDS HAVE BEEN TRAINED TODAY MONDAY JULY 19th
AT 25 miles A FULL LIST OF THE BIRDS IN THE LOFT AS OF THAT DATE APPEARS UNDER TRAINING




LOFT MANAGERS REPORT MID JUNE

Well as you can see from the results the old bird second hotspot from Crieff was a very fast affair, with clear blue skies and a tail wind it is amazing how 2 birds can pull away by a clear margin but that’s exactly what they did, after a 0600 liberation I thought we could get birds in 6 hours for the 337 mile journey to us, so the 1100 young birds I had flying out at the lofts I got in at 1130 but about 40 were playing hard to get and were still out at 1140 when up as high as dot in the sky the gathered fanciers from as far a field as Norfolk shouted here’s one! after some early disbelief it was clear this was the first bird and after this lovely mealy pied cock flew over to the young bird loft to drive about at the babies left out he clapped over to the old bird loft and clocked in at 1143 there was then a quarter of an hour gap with nothing, and after a few phone calls including National Verification it was clear 2 pigeons both flying into Cardiff were well clear and it looked like we would be pipped and have to settle for 2nd National then just before 12 noon I saw a batch diving for the loft sure enough all from Crieff a group of 15 together all down and in the clock in just 73 seconds!!!!!!!! These were then followed by birds at the rate of one a minute for the next hour and a total of 147 birds home ready to fly the main race from Thurso in 4 weeks! RACE DAY FRIDAY JULY 9th pool sheets are in the post.
The final result of the Crieff National will be published in due course; however we can report that we have 16 birds in the first 25 Open National prizes a truly great result for the Europa Birds again!!

With less than 100 paid birds in the race with projected prizes based on 500 paid birds
That’s only 20% full and therefore we will pay 20% of the published prizes, which makes the first prize for Thurso £5000 however with 63 unpaid venturers still in the old bird race we will pay another £100 to the winner for every bird paid for out of these venturers! If they are all paid that’s an additional £6300 to the winner so a potential first prize of £11,300 so if you fancy a flutter its £250 a bird for any of the venturers on offer, or as before buy 2 and get a third for FREE that’s a 3 bird team for £500! An expensive entry I know but with over eleven grand to win a race that only has 140 birds in it and 20 other good prizes is a decent gamble so get on the phone!!!!!!!!!!!

All 1178 young birds are now out flying well, with zero health issues, but as we kept taking birds up to June 1st we are a bit behind with the training, and we will not rush these babies as that is how you get big losses we still have 1140 birds here today of the 1178 we were sent!!!!! We may however put back the first couple of hot spot races for them to give us a chance to catch up; a definite decision will be made by early July.

Next training for the old birds will be Liverpool 150 miles Wednesday June 23rd
Best of luck to you all

The Europa team 07810 323827/ 07900 131592





LOFT MANAGERS REPORT EARLY JUNE



The loft for the intake of 2010 young birds is now closed, with a final head count of 1278 birds for this year Europa Classic.
A disappointing total again being just 1 bird more than last year, but I suppose in these very bad economic times any growth at all on last year should be welcomed and indeed we thank you all for your support, and look forward to putting on another great race to follow up on last years super final event, more details to follow soon, starting with the inventory that will be posted on June 15.
In the mean time we have the small matter of the old bird race to conclude, and to that end today we basketted our 185 remaining birds at our local National marking station, for the second hot spot race to be flown this Saturday June 12 in conjunction with the Welsh Grand National FC from Crieff 340 miles, the birds have been flying well on our roundabout system, but truth be known they could have done with another 10 days to have had them perfect for this race! so being towards the top of the National result may be a bit beyond us on this occasion, however as long as we can get them home from this race in good time we will be a lot more confident about a good performance from Thurso 500 miles in 4 weeks time, by which time the birds will be ready to fly for their lives!
Anyways in our own loft here they all have the same chance of winning the prizes in this hotspot as well as the main race of course that is as long as the birds have been activated/paid for! there are still plenty of unpaid/venturer birds obviously any of these early in the result will not qualify for the prizes on offer, and I am sure these will be snapped up when they complete this Crief race which is always a difficult race, however those that make it home will be well worthy of a tilt at Thurso on July 9th.
As usual all are welcome at the loft to await the arrivals from Crieff we expect the birds to be up about 0700 and home between 2 and 3 pm but with Crieff you never can be
Sure!!!!

Best of luck to you all.

The Europa Team
07810 323827

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