AU Breeder’s Award The AU Breeder’s Award is designed to honor AU members who excel at breeding and sending birds to other AU members to compete in special races, auction races, one-loft races, charity races, benefits, futurity or futurity type races sponsored by an AU affiliated organization. If you enjoy competing in these races, then the AU wants you to complete the award application and be eligible for a national ranking. Race performances in regular club or combine races will not be considered for this award. Races in which a fancier flies to his own loft or loft survey are not eligible. Birds flying in the races submitted must be flown as young birds or yearlings and be banded accordingly. Fanciers must submit a complement of three, but no more than five, qualifying races. Five races will take precedence over four races; four races will take precedence over three races, regardless of the score. The scoring is accomplished using the Universal Performance Rating (UPR) system. Percentiles for each race performance are calculated by dividing the fancier’s position in the race by the total number of birds entered in the race and converting the result into a percentage. These percentages are then averaged over the number of races to determine the Unirate (averaged percentile rankings). Fanciers are then ranked in their order of increasing Unirates. Smaller Unirates are better, i.e.; a 5% unirate is better than 10%. The fancier’s bird must win a position in the top 20% of the birds entered in each race submitted to qualify. The races submitted must include at least two races under the sponsorship of at least two different AU affiliated organizations of which the applicant is not a member. Those two races must have different airline surveys and hold unique AU memberships through affiliated clubs. You may not submit a race flown by yourself or to your own loft or loft survey. Winners will be awarded a national ranking and receive a certificate. Applicants will be grouped in one of four divisions based of the average birdeage of races submitted. The high and low birdeage races will not be used in the average birdeage to determine division. Divisions for birdeage are 60-199 birds, 200-399 birds, 400-599 birds and 600 birds and over. A clearly legible copy of the official race reports produced by an affiliated AU organization must accompany the application. It must show the date of the race, the fancier’s names, the sponsoring organization, the number of birds entered, the number of lofts entered (except one-loft races) and each bird’s race position. Deadline: Only paper applications will be accepted. Applications must be postmarked on or before September 1 of each year.