Let me explain the origin of the name, "Turned Luck". My lifelong trade has been as a farrier, probably better known as a blacksmith or horseshoer. As part of my occupation I am sometimes required to hand forge specialty shoes for horses. The trade term for hand forging a shoe is "turning a shoe", because you turn the steel on your anvil to create the shoe. As we all know horseshoes are a sign of good luck, so I just combined the action and the belief to come up with name "Turned
Luck."
This actually has a little more meaning to me personally as I feel one creates their own luck and it is all in what you make of it. So I keep that in mind as I work with my animals. It is all what I make of it and I leave nothing to luck. |
My adventure into Racing Homers started in the spring of 2005 with the idea of a white dove release business. I didn't want just junk release birds so I went in search of white racers. This in turn lead me to my friend Ron Deisher owner of PDQ Racing Loft in Sandburn, IN. Ron has built his loft around the famous GFL birds of Mike Ganus. Ron and Mike are good friends and visit quite often. My friendship with Ron gave me the opportunity to purchase white grizzles down from the Golden Witten and Silver Boy lines. Well one thing lead to another. 
Birds being released for the 2004 Barcelona National While checking out an online auction in late 2006, Ron had a fabulous young cock up; "Lucky Prince". He was so athletic looking that I had to have him; even if it would take generations to breed pure whites out of him. Well that was just the beginning. I figured in order to keep the quality of my whites up I would compete with the local club in young bird races. Then later in conversation with Ron I came up with the bright idea of competing in one loft races and this idea of racing just kept building on itself. Unfortunately a career ending back injury
in 2006 forced me to make a drastic change in careers. This curtailed my racing here at home, but I continued to work on my stock loft
with a plan to send youngsters out to races starting in 2008. And hopefully also race young birds here at home. Time will tell. 
What does a 175,00 bird release look like? This Orleans in 1995 In the mean time I built up a stock loft of tremendous quality. As I stated earlier I have Silver Boy
lines. Prince was the beginning of my Hollywood/Hofkens family. I have built up a strong core of inbred Sure Bet birds including some Super Crack 699
line bred hens and I have added several beautiful youngsters of the Creator blood. I also have the odd and end inbred
GFL Family stock bird to make crosses with the inbred lines
mentioned above fro racers.
I have decided to add
the Golden Mattens line to my loft. I started with cock
bred by Protégé Loft, which is a double grandson and a double great grandson of the Golden Mattens.
I also have an inbred son from this same cock. I hope to build a family around this strong core of GFL based birds that can successfully compete in the Young Bird One Loft and Futurity races. I mentioned Ron Deisher earlier; if it weren't for his devoted friendship and endless generosity I would not have the quality stock that I have, especially birds based around the GFL families. I wish that everyone could find such a friend in the sport!!! I also have a line of the Dworek Huysken van Riels. All of the original stock is from Barry Venn of Casper, WY. This line is a tough old family with lots of futurity wins behind them, originating from the Dworek brothers in the hills of western Pennsylvania. | 