Apple Cup OLR · 350 miles · 2022
El Jefe — Equal 1st — Final Race, Apple Cup OLR · 350 miles (2022)
Three hundred and fifty miles is where a One Loft Race stops being about speed and starts being about whether a bird can keep going. El Jefe kept going.
Bird
El Jefe
Race
Apple Cup OLR · 350 miles
Result
Equal 1st — Final Race
Prize
$15,000+
How it happened
The 2022 final was a 350-mile race — the kind of distance that thins a race sheet fast. El Jefe clocked Equal 1st and turned the series into a $15,000+ result, the biggest single win in loft history at the time.
That one race changed how I pair birds. Everything I keep for distance now traces back through this cock, and the grizzle marking has become a shorthand for the long-distance side of the loft.
El Jefe's real value showed up afterwards, in the loft rather than on the clock: his youngsters keep placing in One Loft Races across the country.
The family behind the bird
El Jefe heads the Barrera's Grizzles — the long-distance family I turn to when the course is hard. The line keeps producing birds that place at distance, both in my own entries and in the lofts of fanciers I work with.
Read about Barrera's GrizzlesAdd this kind of genetics to your loft
Birds from these families are offered through the shop, or you can campaign one with me in a One Loft Race partnership.