Getting Rich in SIM - Purchasing for Profit

Original article written by Regina Moore posted 12 years 4 weeks ago

Because the vast majority of horses can be profitable in SIM, then it follows that the more active racehorses you have, the more money you can make all the more quickly. Therefore, I’m a believer in large stables for those who have making money as fast as possible as their major goal. However, a large stable only makes sense if the following two situations are always true:

1. The player has the time and energy to manage a large stable
2. The player gets rid of non-performing horses as easily as he/she buys horses

By non-performing horses, I mean those that are worse than fourth two or three races in a row. If you don’t get rid of genuinely bad horses quickly (or horses that have gone off form, after having once been decent horses), then you’ll be overwhelmed with too many horses. If you’re constantly buying horses for a large stable, then you need to be committed to constantly getting rid of horses.

I’m not going to try to define what a large stable is. That’s up to the individual player. But note that I’m talking about a large stable of *race*horses, not a large stable of youngsters or broodmares. Youngsters and broodmares don’t make you any money in the present. These articles are focused on making you money as quickly as possible.


PURCHASE HORSES WITH PROFIT IN MIND AND FOR SHORT TERM RESULTS
The biggest roadblock to a horse being profitable is when you pay too much for the horse to begin with. For some horses, $10,000 can be too much to pay, especially when there’s plenty of other similar types of horses available for $1000 or less.

Ask yourself: How much money is this horse likely to earn in a full game year cycle?

If you have no concept of how much a horse can earn in a race, please see the FAQ where I did a “cheat sheet” for purse distribution: http://www.simhorseracing.com/simforum/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=18250

If a horse is an average Thoroughbred, then I’m going to say that $12,000 is a reasonable figure for what that horse can earn in one game year. That considers winning one everyday race with a $15,000 purse ($7500 to the winner), plus some placings in everyday races, from six or seven starts. So, you don’t want to pay 12k for that horse, because then you’re just breaking even. If you can pay 5k for that horse, then he’ll roughly double your money (keep in mind that there’s shipping cost, board, etc) by the end of a game year cycle. If you paid only 1k, you’re looking at roughly an 8k-10k profit. Do the latter with 50 everyday horses, and you’ve got yourself a $400,000 to $500,000 profit in one game year. Buy 100 everyday horses, priced at 1k, that are capable of winning 12k during the next game year, and you’ve got yourself $800,000 to $1,000,000 in profit by the end of that time.

That’s the power of a large stable of active racehorses that eliminates poor performers, even if the remaining horses are quite ordinary.

If you find a horse on the sales page that has placed in stakes – or even won a stakes – then you’ll likely be willing to pay more than 12k for it. But be very careful here. It’s easy to get caught up in the idea that a horse on the sales page for 25k was once a Grade 2 stakes winner. If that win was within his last three races, and there were more than four horses in the race, then go ahead and buy for that price. But if he won, say, the Grade 2 race five races back, and in his last start only got third in a 32k claimer, I’d be very leery of spending more than you would for any other horse. Just like real life racehorses, most SIM horses take a sudden, permanent drop in form at some point in their careers. (That sudden drop in form can happen after just a few races.) Sometimes you can still get some good performances from them in cheap claimers, but don’t get caught up in the fantasy of thinking you’re going to recapture their stakes-winning youth.

If you’re serious about getting rich quick, then you need to focus on horses that can earn money for you *now*. That’s why I emphasize to only think in terms of what the horse can do for you in the next 16 weeks (a full game year cycle).


CAVEATS WHEN BUYING
Recent Races – Nothing is more important in the horse’s race record than how it’s performed in its most recent races. If the horse finished 8th, 5th, and 10th in its last three starts, there’s little hope of getting much from it, unless you’re confident that you can find some small fields to race it in. You want a horse that shows some evidence of currently having a “can do” attitude.

Field Size – Be very careful of being impressed by a horse that has earned money in every start, when those placings might merely be because the horse has been racing in small fields. When looking at a horse’s past performances, field size is that number in parenthesis at the end of the running line.

State Bred Races – Be leery of horses whose best finishes are in races that were restricted to horses bred in a specific state, because the competition is usually inferior in state-bred races. If a horse can’t compete in open company, you’re going to have a tough time getting your money back out of that horse. I have a 4yo filly in my barn that I don’t think is even good enough to call average, and yet she has over 100k in earnings because she’s won two Louisiana-bred stakes.

Sponsored Races – Sponsored races are races that are created by others with game points. Usually (not always) sponsored races have small fields and inferior competition. A sponsored Grade 1 race with a 200k purse is unlikely to attract a genuine Grade 1 field. The race description will tell you if the race was sponsored. Be leery of horses whose best races are sponsored races.

With aging racehorses, be careful of the sprinters. As a rule, sprinters fizzle out sooner than milers and routers. Most are beyond their best performances by the end of their 4yo season. (There are some exceptions, however.)

Be on your guard against good salesmanship from other players. Some players might tell you, “This horse will run well for you at Trial Park.” Or, “The reason this filly is priced so high is because she’ll be a good broodmare.” Or, “You’ll earn the purchase price back within two starts.” Players make these statements as though they’re facts. They aren’t facts, they’re guesses. Perhaps educated guesses, but still guesses. No matter how a horse has trained, or how good its pedigree is, nobody can predict the future. I raced at Trial Park when I was a newbie and, believe me, there was nothing in the water there that mysteriously turned a lousy horse into a good horse. Lousy horses continued to race lousy at Trial Park. I also have quite a number of Steward-bred broodmares, and have rarely gotten more than an average foal from them. So, don’t let someone try to tell you it’s *automatic* that a horse is going to do well for you, and you should therefore pay an elevated price for it. Every purchase is a risk.

Keeping these caveats in mind might eliminate a lot of horses. You obviously have to buy *something* in order to have horses to race and make a profit for you. If the price is low enough – say, $1000 or less – you can pretty much take a chance on just about anything, provided you’ll get rid of that horse as soon as it shows it can’t earn money for you. But when you start paying more than $5,000 for horses, you need to do everything you can to insure the likelihood that you’re buying something that can run well enough to turn a profit.

To repeat what I said at the beginning: Most horses in SIM are capable of providing at least a little bit of profit, in terms of earning more than their expenses. Therefore, whether or not you actually make money on them is almost always going to come down to how much you paid for them in the first place.

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