ALL ARTICLES WRITTEN BY CE5S97P

My life as a Simnewbie

Part 1 : The Awakening

Hi all, I just want to kick some life in the res and I like to write about
how I try to evolve in this game. This is just my fifth week of racing and
so I am still just a newbie.
I do not pretend that everything I tell is correct as I am but a newbie and
this is just my interpretation of the game.
The purpose of these writings is dual:
1.    help other newbies to learn how to play the game or give them an insight
on how I approach it
2.    get some reactions from experienced players so they can give their view
on things, help us to get on the right track and straighten out things that
I do wrong or learn new approaches

In the end the purpose is to make BP’s for ourselves but also for this
kicking Residency. We should be one big team helping eachother out to get
the most of our horses and to get everyone to do a step forward.

When I first discovered this game I really thought that this would be quite
a challenge as it really does not seem simple.

So instead of blindly putting a stable together and just jump into it, I
just read about every article in the gameforum section for beginners. The
best article I found was that of TBGIFTED covering the Claimingaspect of the
game.

I discovered that this game is not about making money but about earning
BP’s. The money will come by itself, so your prime target is to make BP’s.
With those bp’s you can do two things: or try to breed a superhorse or use
them in high claimers for claiming a good horse.
Another thing I discovered is that you should try to make the most of every
horse in your stable, even though it may suck big time. Every horse is able
to earn bp’s if you put them in the right race.

Where do we start? Well without horses you can not play this game so first
thing to do is open a stable.

Every beginning stable has 5 horses. These horses are chosen by the computer
for you but you can also advise on which horses you want in that stable.
When the new stable is being setup the will take notice of your preferences
and you may end up with some horses you preferred from the beginning.

I would advise not to let the cpu choose your horses, but I would advise you
to search for some horses which are reasonable to start with and get you
some bp’s. If you get to build a car from scratch you can better start with
a car for which you have chosen the wheels than take the risk and start with
a car without wheels. This will give you immediately a small advantage on
other beginning stables.

Now how do I choose horses I want for a beginning stable?

Unluckily the only way to search for a horse in the beginning is by typing
in the name of a sire. Where do you find sires?
Well what I do is just go to official sites and find some topsires in real
life cause you have to start somewhere.
Site I use most is:  http://breeding.bloodhorse.com/sirelists.asp

Off course a lot of people take this approach and most likely the good
horses from topsires are not in the beginning horsepool anymore. But that
does not mean you can not find decent ones.

At this moment I have 7 stables and sometimes I could find better horses to
begin with than other times. Off course at this moment I look in another way
or even deeper into a horse then in the beginning and as this is just the
first article I am not going into details too much because this is something
that will come gradually.


-    Most of the time I only look for 3 to 4 year olds to start my stables
with. You do not search for 2 years old because you want races under your
belt and 2y olds need more resting between races.
-    Second thing I look at is the number of races it already has raced. You
search for a horse that has been lightly raced. I do not look further when
the horse has run more than 20 races.
-    Third thing I immediately look at is the past performances. Can this horse
get me bp’s fast? You get breeding points for a place in the top 5 of a
race. So if I see a horse that has run top 5 regularily it is an option to
begin with. I do not expect to find miracle horses, so if it is a bit decent
I give it a chance
-    I know that other players and experienced players also look at the
surfaces and distances it ran, but that is not my major concern for the
first five horses of a stable. I would appreciate some insights on this
though.

An example taken on 29th October:
If you look at the bloodhorse.com site and look to leading Turfsires you
will find KINGMAMBO at place 68. Now if you enter this in the horse search
you will find that there are 2 horses available:
18972        Hurtin Hill: has Kingmambo as DamSire
91674        Mister Dee: has Kingmambo as Sire

I immediately am interested in the second one which is 3 years old.
So if you look closely to 91674 you immediately see this:
-    13 races: so it qualifies as lightly raced
-    1 win, 4 second places, 1 show: this guy knows how to get bp’s
-    Kingmambo is a topsire which is an advantage. I can go in more detail
about this but I do not think that that is important right now for your
first stables. Anyway if you just click on the names of sire, ds and dds you
immediately see how many bp’s these are worth. It is no guarantee, but if
you are looking at bpcosts of 200 and more the horse does not have bad
ancestors. One thing I know for sure looking at 91674: in a few years this
would make a nice hemare.
-    If I look at the past performances I see that this horse ran 13 races and
9 times it earned breeding points.
-    I can tell a lot more about this one but that goes too far at the moment
for someone who is opening his first stable.  What I immediately find
strinking is that in his second race this one ran 80 speed at 7 furlong.
That is good. Also the horse had a run on turf of 9,5 furlong and ran 77
speed. This also is not so bad. I am not going into further detail on this
horse but it is clear that you can better start a stable with these kind of
horses instead of let the cpu assign you some runners.

With this article I am starting a new stable and as soon as I have it I will
write a new article and you can see which horses start in this stable.

My life as a Simnewbie

Part 2 : Silence for The Storm

We just picked our horses for the new stable and we are waiting for it to be
setup. Do we just sit in the couch and wait for it?
No, we can prepare our gameplan.

A new stable starts with 5 horses which were assigned to you. As you know
some of these horses or all can be picked by yourself. A new stable also
starts with 25K simmoney and 50 bp’s.
Money is not so important in the sim as you can earn money quickly when you
have some good runners. But in the beginning I use the money wisely and
follow this gameplan:

A beginningstable has two advantages:
1. if you send your horse to a race and the travelcosts are below 300$ you
do not need to pay the travelcosts. So keep your horses in races as close by
as possible.
2. as long as you did not race 20 races with your stable you have a
claimingadvantage. This means that you have more chance to pick up a certain
horse in a claimer than a stable which has over 20 races. You should thus
make use of this advantage to claim really decent horses.

A stable can have up to 10 horses and you should have 5 open spots left.  As
you really need the bp’s you need to fill up your stable as soon as
possible.

Where do you pick up horses to fill these stables up:
1.    The Auction: I would not advice beginners to buy a horse in the auction.
Most of the time others will also bid on decent horses. Plus you should use
the advantage you have in claimers and you do not have that advantage in an
auction
2.    Claimers: in claimingraces you can try to claim a certain horse from an
owner. How you claim is for another article. Those claimingraces have a
certain value: for example 5K claimer. This means that if you claim a horse
and you got it that you have to pay 5K for it. Besides the money you also
pay a couple of bp’s

So what I propose is this: put 5K aside and then 20K remain. As you have 5
spots left this would give you the chance to claim 2 horses of 5K and 3 for
2-2.5K or so.

That is thus the gameplan: as soon as the stable is ready, search for
claimers and start claiming. This will be for one of the next articles.


Most of the time I find it really hard to wait for a new stable and when the
stable is setup it is very difficult to not start entering these new horses
in races. But my approach is to only run a horse when it is sharp. So if
those new horses come in the stable not sharp I won’t race them the first
week. I will cover this in next article cause meanwhile I have seen that my
new stable is allready up.My life as a Simnewbie

Part 2 : Silence for The Storm

We just picked our horses for the new stable and we are waiting for it to be
setup. Do we just sit in the couch and wait for it?
No, we can prepare our gameplan.

A new stable starts with 5 horses which were assigned to you. As you know
some of these horses or all can be picked by yourself. A new stable also
starts with 25K simmoney and 50 bp’s.
Money is not so important in the sim as you can earn money quickly when you
have some good runners. But in the beginning I use the money wisely and
follow this gameplan:

A beginningstable has two advantages:
1. if you send your horse to a race and the travelcosts are below 300$ you
do not need to pay the travelcosts. So keep your horses in races as close by
as possible.
2. as long as you did not race 20 races with your stable you have a
claimingadvantage. This means that you have more chance to pick up a certain
horse in a claimer than a stable which has over 20 races. You should thus
make use of this advantage to claim really decent horses.

A stable can have up to 10 horses and you should have 5 open spots left.  As
you really need the bp’s you need to fill up your stable as soon as
possible.

Where do you pick up horses to fill these stables up:
1.    The Auction: I would not advice beginners to buy a horse in the auction.
Most of the time others will also bid on decent horses. Plus you should use
the advantage you have in claimers and you do not have that advantage in an
auction
2.    Claimers: in claimingraces you can try to claim a certain horse from an
owner. How you claim is for another article. Those claimingraces have a
certain value: for example 5K claimer. This means that if you claim a horse
and you got it that you have to pay 5K for it. Besides the money you also
pay a couple of bp’s

So what I propose is this: put 5K aside and then 20K remain. As you have 5
spots left this would give you the chance to claim 2 horses of 5K and 3 for
2-2.5K or so.

That is thus the gameplan: as soon as the stable is ready, search for
claimers and start claiming. This will be for one of the next articles.


Most of the time I find it really hard to wait for a new stable and when the
stable is setup it is very difficult to not start entering these new horses
in races. But my approach is to only run a horse when it is sharp. So if
those new horses come in the stable not sharp I won’t race them the first
week. I will cover this in next article cause meanwhile I have seen that my
new stable is allready up

My life as a Simnewbie

Part 3 : Showing the Troops

Well my stable quickly got set up and it is time to see what I got.

I had picked 8 horses myself but unluckily only got a few of what I wanted.
Unfortunately no Kingmambo got picked (see My Life as a Simnewbie: part 1)

So let’s take a look at what we received.

81070: Deluxe Lard (this one I picked myself)
15 races run of which 2 wins, 4 places, 1 show. Not bad.
DDS is Roberto, expensive and good.
The horse surely has the blood of Roberto in its veins as it also prefers
Turf and classic/long.
It got bp’s 12 times in it’s carreer. And that was just the point: get bp’s.
The horse has best performed in the range of 8,5-10 furlong and it
definitely is horse to put into claimers. Tried an allowance which did not
work out, but got decent points in claimers. Next race for this one will be
again a claimer in the range of 2,5K – 20K and distance of 8,5 or 9. Clearly
the long route of 16 furlong did not work out for this one, but it is
something you need to try.
69566: Tiz Victor (this one I picked myself)
18 races run of which 3 wins, 3 places, 4 show. Not bad either.
I chose this one because of it’s sire Tiznow which produces dirt routers.
The Damsire Monongahela produces turfers, so it might be that this one also
can run on turf.
This horse picked up some decent amount of bp’s as long as it had not won a
race. Afterwards it became much more difficult and in the last four races it
ran for the cpu in races which had not sufficient contestants. There are two
possibilities with this horse: or just put it in low claimers and it should
pick up some bp’s or even try to do the same as the cpu: find some races
with a small field and put it in.
I do have to admit that I made a mistake in choosing this horse as I forgot
to look at the reason behind those past performances. I did not check and I
should have seen that it ran 4 times for the cpu. If I had seen that I would
have never picked it up.
So this one was a mistake.
But now I have it I have to make the best of it. I do have the impression
that this horse is better on turf than on dirt and so I will put it in low
turfclaimers. How do I see this?
Look at the speeds it ran on dirt and look at the speeds and distances it
ran on turf. You can get faster speeds on dirt than on turf but this horse’s
speeds on turf are not much lower than on dirt. So therefore I think turf
will suit better.
49234: Magor Missabib (this one I picked myself)
14 races run of which 1 wins, 1 place, 3 show.
I chose this one because of the DDS: Mr Prospector. If you are a newbie this
name does not say much but you will find this one all over the place.
On the other hand: when I saw that speed of 85 over a mile on dirt in it’s
last race, this was sufficient for me to know that this is a decent claimer
which will earn me bp’s.
In those 14 races this one picked up breeding points 11 times.
What also strikes me is the low claiming tag of 2K and the fact that 85 was
it’s best performance and it never ran further than a mile.
For me this horse is a bit too good to just dump straightaway in a claimer,
so I will put this one in the lowest starterallowance race I can find and
start with a mile or even 8,5 furlong.
By the way: this one has a CPU value of 270 which really is not bad to start
with. And it only has 14 races under its belt so this one can progress a bit
further.
81601: Golden Stone (this one was picked by the CPU)
I did not pick this one myself so I’m curious for what they gave me.
18 races of which 1 win and 4 places. Claiming Tag of 2K.
Horse was cheaply bred (click on the names of the ancestors and see their
current value: it is not much).
The horse had it’s best performances in classic Turfraces with a really low
field. So that is where I will start with this horse.
It is not a good one, but let’s try to make the most of it: so I will put it
in classicturfraces with a low field .
81740: Zayyawillsmile (GB) (this one was picked by the CPU)
The CPU gave me a two year old. Disadvantage with a 2 year old is that you
can not race it so much because it needs more rest.
It ran 4 races and did nothing but a fourth place in its last one.
The speeds are not good, but it ran 52 on turf the last race. So we can use
that as a startingpoint.
A newbred horse should be tried both on turf and dirt and should be tried on
sprints and classic races. So it seems to me that this one might like turf
better. It only ran in sprints so we definitely should try to go further
with this one just to check.
Anyway next race will be a turf race of minimal 6,5 furlong.

This is the startingstable and these are my first soldiers to go into battle
with.

Do I start them immediately in a race?


NO: none of the horses came sharp in my stable and all where Ready To Go.
Off course you can run a horse RTG , but my personal rule is not to do this.
So I put my horses on training for week 2671 and see whether they come up
sharp or not. If they come up sharp this will raise my chances on bp’s and I
will race them for sure.
If they do not come up sharp I will race them anyway because I have checked
the last date each horse ran and they all should have enough rest by week
2671.


I am not sure whether I was correct on all these horses, but this is just to
show my approach for other newbies. You do not go to war without a knife so
you have to prepare and do all necessary and one thing you should do is
analyse a horse. I am sure I will get better at this in the future because
experience will help.

Conclusion: I am not racing with this stable this week so in one week I will
write an article about raceselection and jockeysettings.

This week you can expect an article about claiming because I need 10 horses
in my stable. It also is not fun to have 5 horses racing and then wait 3
weeks before you can race them again. So wee need more and better horses to
get the BPcounter up.

My life as a Simnewbie

Part 4 : Building the Army

Hi all, here is part 4 of the story to help all newbies out.
First of all a word of thnx to all people that gave nice comments and
appreciate the articles.

There are still three things I forgot to say in the first article:
1.    do not hesitate to visit the chatroom. You find fellowsimmers and you can
always ask questions and often have an immediate reply. Most simmers like to
look at horses of someone else and like to give comments.
2.    join a residency. You form a team and you also can ask questions. Your
fellow resmembers will help you out as the more bp’s are made in the res,
the better.
3.    Read the instructions on the game very thoroughly in the helpsection.
Most of the things I tell are actually in that helpsection. Mine is just a
more practical approach.


In last article I showed you which horses where picked to begin my new
stable with. I also told that none of the horses were sharp and I just gave
them one week to train for week 2671 and get sharp.

Meanwhile I like to build up my stable as soon as possible and therefor I do
not wait till the races of 2671 but I am gonna look in the claimingraces of
this week whether I can find some good soldiers to built my army with. When
we picked our horses to begin the stable with we did not have under control
which horses we were gonna get and which not. The advantage with claiming
horses is that when you claim the horse it will be your own choice.

Normally I do not look at the auction, I only look to the claimingraces.
This week I made an expection and I am also looking in the auctions. The
disadvantage here is that with a beginning stable you do not have sufficient
money and there probably will always be one that overbids you. The advantage
of the auction is that when you buy a horse at the auction you pay with
simmoney and it soes not coast you breedingpoints. When you claim a horse
you pay in money AND in breedingpoints.
Next week I let you know whether I got a horse from the auction or not. As
we will only be looking at low claimingraces I am not willing to pay more
for a horse in the auction than I would pay for it in a low claimer.

The big advantage for beginning stables is that as long as you don’t have
not raced 20 races with your stable that you have more chances in claiming a
horse than someone who has more than 20 races ran.

You almost take the same approach as by picking the first horses for a new
stable, at least in reading the past performances etc.

Some general rules I like to follow:
-    do not claim 2 year olds because they need longer rest between races and
if you want bp’s you need horses that can run at least every three weeks.
-    do not claim maidens. I like to claim horses that at least have shown that
they can win a race
-    do not claim horses that have too much races under their belt
-    a horse that can not win but is able to run top 5 pretty constantly is a
horse that can get bp’s and thus a good one
-    do not claim a horse that can not run an average speed of 85 on a sprint,
80 in a classic race, 70 in a longer route (these are speeds for dirt; for
turf they can be lower). These rules are not so strict, but it is kind of a
guideline to me. I admit that I regularily diverge from these rules

An ideal claiming horse for me is:
-    a horse that applies on the speedrule I set earlier
-    a horse that has a low claiming tag and still some months till it expires
-    a horse that made bp’s in allowances and is now dumped in a low claimer to
get his low tag
-    a horse that has been put on the wrong surface or distance by it’s current
trainer

Most experienced player will watch out before putting a good horse in a low
claimer, but not all players are experienced and you really can do some
bargains sometimes in the low claimingraces.


Now how do I proceed and go through the claimers?:

First I look at the gamesite at the upcoming races and write down all
claimingraces <= 5K.
Then I go to this site: http://sinoboy.net/sim/EntryChecker.do?if=1
This is the entrycheckertool of Sinoboy which I use a lot: for claimers and
for entering my own horses.

At that site I enter each race I wrote down and then you get an overview of
all horses willing to enter that race. Next to each horse you will see a
Maxspeed and an average speed for the race it is gonna run.
If I find horses in a race with decent speeds I click on them and have a
closer look whether to see if I will try and put a claim in for them or not.
For this I look at: number of races run, age of the horse, claimingtag,
pedigree, number of top 5 places in past races, past performances, placings,
speed,…….
This is the way I make up my mind. I write down all horses I will try to
claim and in the end I choose five because you can put claims in for maximum
five horses.

I will give one example and then it is up to you.

Race 2660.4502: 6,5 Turf for M-3yo
With the entrychecker you see that two horses have a maxspeed of above 85
and an avg speed over 80 on a turfsprint. Horses are 91231 and 6747.
Let’s take a closer look and see whether they are worth putting a claim in
or not.

91231:

-    claimingtag of  2K: good
-    19 races: so still lot of good races left: good
-    3 wins, 3 places, 2 shows: almost 50% of the time this horse ran In The
Money: good
-    And it can win a race
-    This is not a cheaply bred horse: in beginning of the week Sire, DamSire
and Dam’s DamSire cost more than 300 and even 400 breedingpoints
-    In 14 races this one grabbed bp’s: very good
-    Speed on 6 to 7 Turf is avg 85 : good

Overall this is a very good horse to claim because it can make bp’s.
I think that the trainer that put him in a low claimer has made some
mistakes in the 3 races the horse ran: - race 2601 was at a good distance
but the competition was too high. Still a nice 5th place. The horse has a
tag of 2K so I think it will do better in a lower starter.
The two last races where just at the wrong distance: the horse is clearly
best between 6 and 7 furlong, so 5 was too short and 8,5 furlong was too
long.

Conclusion: I would try to claim it.


6747:

-    claimingtag of  2K: good
-    15 races: so still lot of good races left: good
-    1 wins, 2 places, 2 shows: almost 33% of the time this horse ran In The
Money: good
-    The Sire costs over 400 bp’s beginning of the week.
-    In 6 races this one grabbed bp’s: that is ok
-    His best speed was in his last race and was 85 on 6,5 turf

Overall this horse is a bit less than the first one, but still a decent
claim. The horse has run sufficiently both on dirt and turf and is clearly
better on turf. The horse was also put on classic distance on turf and
distance and the last race it ran indicated that it is a turfsprinter. So
that are the races where this one can grab bp’s. It also only has 15 races
ran, so there can be still a little progression.

Conclusion: I would try to claim it.

This is just to show how I go through the claimers. The only thing on my
mind is: can this horse get me bp’s?

I know that I strongly decrease my chances by publishing these two horses,
but what the heck: plenty of fish in the sea and it is for the good cause.

Next week I will let you know which horses I was able to claim and/or buy at
the auction and do a very little review on them. Most important for next
week is whether the five horses in my stable or sharp or not and how I
decide which race to put them in.

My life as a Simnewbie

Part 5 : welcoming the new guests

Like I told in the last chapter I did not have any racing this week, but I
was on the watchout for some claimers.
First of all I have been looking at the auction and managed to pick up one
horse. I really am not found of the auction as a newbie and what I picked up
is not so good. At least I picked this one up for one dollar so if he gives
me a fifth place then I should be happy.

49276: Backdoor Draw

This is a 3y old colt which has 11 races under his belt. Aside from a third
place and three fifths this one did nothing and thus is still a maiden. I
will have to put it in the lowest maidenclaimers I can find.
He has only ran once on turf and I think I will try him first on turf. The
influence of the DDS should give turfroutes so I first try it on a turfmile
again. But my hopes are not high for this one.
In the auction I bid on three horses and off course this one was clearly the
worst and noone overbid me. My own fault


Luckily I think my claimers are much better and will be able to give me
bp’s.

6012: Believe In Buda
Picked up in a 3.5K claimer

Before I give the hard figures I like to say something about the dam of this
one: the dam rode 79 races and won 21 times in a turfrace of which 20 where
routes (10 stakeraces and 2 G2’s)
If I look at the stats of the sire, damsire, dam’s damsire, then I
immediately think that this one should also be a turf router. But this one
has been running on dirt constantly with exception of the first two races.
If you look at the past performances then we see that this one is also
clearly a horse for the longer distance, still I would like to know what it
can do in a turfroute, so that will probably be my first step with this
horse. The horse has been gathering bp’s pretty consistently, so this is not
a bad claim.

90290: Battle of Antietam
Picked up in a 4K claimer

In his 16 races this one grabbed bp’s 14 times. That is just what we need.
Looking at the ancestors this really was no cheapie, but it clearly is no
brilliant horse: it was put in low field allowances and managed to get bp’s
that way.
The range to put this on in is pretty big : from 7f to 9,5f will be good. I
will try to put this one in a low starter first and see what happens then.

My stable has grown with 3 horses this week of which 2 are decent and will
surely make me bp’s. The other one came from the auction and we will try our
best.

Off course the claimers are just picked up and I will train those again for
within 3 weeks when they will run their first race for me.

Next chapter will be about the entries for next week, the selection of the
jockey’s and the jockeysettings.

My life as a Simnewbie

Part 6 : prepare for battle

The big first raceday in my new stable is coming nearer and nearer. I have
waited till the cards were posted to start writing this article.

If you go back to the part 3 of the "My Life As A Simnewbie"-series you will
see which horses were in my stable at the beginning and you have a brief
analysis on each horse.
This is the startingpoint.

I always do this for every horse so that when I have to find a suitable race
for my horses I know what to look for.

4 of my horses were trained for week 2671 and one for week 2685. Of the four
only 3 came sharp and one is RTG. I decide to race them all.

There are four things I always do before races:
   -  search for a suitable race and sign up for it
   -  just before the entries are closed check whether the horse is
      probably in or not. If yes, no problem. If no: I search for
      another suitable race to put the horse in
   -  After my entries I do my jockeyselections
   -  After jockeyselections I look at jockeysettings and sometimes I
      change them

We go through each step.

   1. Search for race and sign up

I can not decide on what horse should be put in what race, but an analysis
of each horse can help to give you a startingpoint. Always remember that as
a newbie your first concern is to make bp's. It does not matter which way
you do this. If you have a really bad horse which is sharp you can search
for a race with max 4 horses entered. That way you increase your chance to
get bp's out of that horse, regardless of whether the ground or the distance
suits.
Please also note that as long as you do not have raced 20 races with a
stable you do not have to pay travelcosts when these are below 300$. If I
have a bad horse and I can not find a low field and I enter him in a larger
field I make sure that I cut the costs as much as possible as the horse is
not really worth it. For better horses you can decide on travelling further.
Money is not so important in this game but if you are a newbie I do not want
to advise to travel a horse from US to Europe and loose 10,000$ with that.
Once the money has been rolling in and you have better horses you can do
that. For finding races and checking entries I always use this site:
http://sinoboy.net/sim/RaceFinder.do

81070: Deluxe Lard
I had really some difficulties to get this one signed up. As seen the
analysis two issues ago, this one prefers turf and classic distance. I had
entered it in a 9f race but on thuesday I noticed that I was probably not in
the race. So I scratched from the race and entered in race 2671.6004: this
is a low 4K 1mile Turf claiming race with a full field. This could be
perhaps a little bit to short but you never know. The odds I got for this
race are 18/1 and by the looks of it perhaps top 5 is possible.

81601: Golden Stone
In my analysis I had said that this one could grab some points in a low
classic turf claimer. I could not find a race like that and actually this
one is in the same race as Deluxe Lard and was signed up earlier on. Odds
are not good at 23/1 so I do not expect to much out of it as it is racing in
a full field.

49234: Magor Missabib
If you have read the analysis this was one of the better horses in that
stable. Instead of dumping him in a claimer where he probably belongs I just
decided to try out a low starter allowance of 10 furlong on dirt with 6
entries. Odds I got where 7/2 and off course I hope for top 5 and some bp's.
I know this horse never ran further than a mile but this low field of 6 is
my ideal chance to see what this one can do on a longer distance.

81740: Zayyawillsmile
It was difficult to enter this one in a race. In the analysis I told that
there were no real sparks in her races but I had a hunch that turf would be
the best ground. Sprints did not work out and I chose a 7.5 turf MSW for
this one. It is races at Friday so at this moment I still am not sure
whether it will make the card or not.
I’m also not expecting too much of this one.

Well, the entries or done, so time for the next step.


   2. Selecting Jockeys

In the game you can choose 20 jockeys per week per stable. You do not have
to choose your jockeys but you may. What I most of the time do is this: I
check out which horses I entered on which tracks per stable: so let’s say
that at a certain week I have 4 horses running in a stable. Then I choose 5
jockeys per track if it is all different tracks and these I enter.

I must say that I do have my doubts with the selection of the jockeys as I
do not know whether it has such an influence. Off course you see jockeys
with higher stats as others and there will be a difference but it also is
some kind of selffullfilling prophecy: the best horses have first choice in
jockeys; so they probably choose a jockey with good stats. By this kind of
selection the jockeys with the best stats will have the best horses and it
is difficult for the other jockeys to get into the points with lesser
horses. So are the jockeys with lower stats are so bad? I have my doubts. So
maybe jockeyselection is a bit overrated?
Still: overrated or not, to be on the safe side I select my jockeys.

   3. Riding Options

One thing that has a lot of influence I think, are the riding options and
you really should take a look at that, certainly for your better horses.
Riding Options are done for each horse and can have a value from 0 to 1 or
can be set on Jockey Select.
For horses that have not ran that much it is wise to put the settings on
Jockeyselect. That way you will get to know your horse better: if you see
him race in front and see him drop back completely at the end of the race
you might try to restrain him next time from taking the lead.
Now how do you know how to set your Riding Options? I think it is a tough
process to get through and I still feel I am a newbie in that area.
What I do is this: I look at the horse’s best results in similar races as
where I entered it and check how the horse ran at the different
controlpoints C1 C2 C3 and finish: check on placing and distance behind
leader. And from there I try to determine what I would like the horse to do.
Some examples based on my entered horses:

81070: Deluxe Lard
The last race it ran on 9f turf there where 7 starters. At checkpoint 1 it
was in 5th place only 2 lengths from the leader. So it never lost too much
touch with the leader and came back very good to win.  If you look at
earlier results you see that the horse ran best when it did not lost contact
with the first horses. So this one seems to run best in the first half of
the pack. Therefor I put the settings to 0.8 . I would have set the settings
on 0.7 but since the race is a bit shorter then what it is used to I put it
a bit higher.

81601: Golden Stone
I had two options for this one. Since the competition probably is too high
and the field is too big for this one I could have left it to Jockey Select
but I chose to try to get this one in the middle of the pack and then see
what happens. Settings put on 0.5.

49234: Magor Missabib
This horse is running 2 furlongs more than what it has ever done. If you
look at past performances this one also likes to run in front of the pack.
Still since the race is long and 10 furlong I think it has plenty of time to
come back and I do not want it to go too fast in the beginning so it gets
burned. I also do not want it to take the lead when I put the settings too
high and the other trainers put them lower. So therefore I chose a setting
of  0.6 and we will see what happens.

81740: Zayyawillsmile
This one was easy. She never ran good and I do not have a clue on how to put
the settings so I just left it on jockeyselect and hope that after the race
I have a better view on this horse.


When you look at the riding options screen you notice the Riding % field.
Till now I never used that so I can not tell anything decent about it.


Well that is about it: choose a race, enter the horse, check a few times
during the week, select your jockeys and do the riding options.

On the gamesite you will find schedules on when everything needs to be done.
You just have to make sure that you have a race and jockeys before the cards
are drawn.