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The Grand Assumption - Distance and Surface

Original article written by Regina Moore posted 12 years 0 weeks ago

It has occurred to me in recent weeks that SIMsters are often guilty of making the assumption that newer players automatically know what is meant about correct distance and surface. After all, everybody knows what a turf sprinter is... don’t they?

Not necessarily. Or, perhaps a newish player knows that “sprint” means a short distance, but in racing terms, doesn’t know what that means in furlongs or miles. Or perhaps they live in Europe, where horses race on pretty green courses, and it’s never occurred to them that it’s significant that some SIM races have the words “dirt” or “All Weather” in the description.

I’m going to try to put myself in the shoes of someone who knows next to nothing about horse racing (or knows something but is really bad at math, especially as it relates to furlongs), and try to address the subjects of distance and surface in the most straightforward terms.


THE GREAT IMPORTANCE
I doubt anyone would argue that distance and surface are the single two most important factors in SIM. Really, you can have a horse by SIM’s best dirt route stallion, out of SIM’s most outstanding dirt route mare, but it’s highly unlikely the offspring would have much success at all, if it was raced in anything other than dirt route races.

So, the single most important thing you need to know in SIM is what is meant by the three basic distance categories – sprint, mile, and route – and the three surface categories, which are turf, dirt, and All Weather.

The most important thing you need to know about each individual horse in your stable is what distance and surface it was bred for.

In this article, I’m talking about Thoroughbreds on the flat (ie, not steeplechasers – jumping horses – or mixed breeds).


DEFINING DISTANCE
Sprints are the shortest races. They are any race under a mile. A mile is the equivalent of 8 furlongs. So, any race less than 8 furlongs is a sprint.

A mile is a mile. Period. Horses that are bred to be milers should only race at one mile.

Routes are the longer races. Any race over one mile is a route.

If you get befuddled by thinking in terms of miles – and whether over or under – perhaps this will help:

If a SIM race is listed in furlongs, it’s a sprint. Races in SIM are rarely shorter than 4 furlongs (a half mile). Probably the most common sprint distance is 6 furlongs (three-quarters of a mile).

If a SIM race is listed as one mile, it’s a mile.

If a SIM race is listed with a fraction, such as 1 1/8 (one mile and one-eighth; ie, the equivalent of 9 furlongs), it’s a route. Routes in SIM can get up to two miles (16 furlongs), but are rarely longer than that.


SURFACE
Surface is an easier concept to absorb, because there isn’t any math.

A dirt race is run on a dirt surface, which is the prevalent surface in North America.

A turf race is run on grass, and is the surface the vast majority of Thoroughbred races are run on in Europe, as well as other parts of the world.

All Weather is a relatively new surface, both in real life and in SIM. It looks like dirt, but it’s actually a synthetic material that, in theory, is easier on the horse’s legs. (And that’s the extent of my understanding as to why it was brought into existence.)

In SIM, all you need to know about surface is that if your horse is bred to run on turf, then you should only run it in turf races. Ditto for dirt and AW.


CATEGORIES
So, here are nine basic categories (aka “type”) for surface/distance:

Turf sprinter
Turf miler
Turf router
Dirt sprinter
Dirt miler
Dirt router
AW sprinter
AW miler
AW router

Every horse in your barn should be one of these categories.


HOW TO FIND WHAT CATEGORY YOUR HORSE IS
The easiest, quickest way to find out what distance/surface type your horse is, is to look at the sire. We’ll say his name is Daddy Horse. Click on Daddy Horse. Go to his “Past Performances” tab. Glance through his races. If you keep seeing the word “dirt” and the distances have fractions, then he’s a dirt router. If you keep seeing the word “All Weather” and the races all say one mile, then he’s an AW miler. If you keep seeing the word “turf” and the races are all listed in furlongs, then Daddy Horse was a turf sprinter.

Also, you can go to Daddy Horse's “progeny” tab. Click the “Earnings” column heading twice. That will list all offspring by highest earners. Click on each of the top three or so offspring. Look at their race records and see what distance/surface those horses race successfully at. That’s another way of determining what type of runner Daddy Horse is siring.

If you’re a SIMperior player (highly recommended), the task of finding out the sire’s surface/distance category is easy. You can simply click on the “See Studbook Page” link, and his studbook page will show his stallion type, per his owner’s assessment.

Whatever category Daddy Horse is, then that’s *probably* the category your horse is. I say probably, because in most cases, one can assume that if Daddy Horse was a dirt router, then the mares bred to him were also dirt routers. This is because the biggest, single most basic rule of SIM breeding is “breed like to like”. Dirt route mares should be bred to dirt route stallions. Turf sprint mares should be bred to turf sprint stallions. And so on.

Perhaps your horse was bred by a player who didn’t know what they were doing, or a knowledgeable veteran player that wanted to experiment. So, really, you should also look at your horse’s dam’s (mother’s) race record. Perhaps she was a dirt sprinter, and she was bred to a dirt route stud. For newer or struggling players, such horses with “confused distance breeding” should be avoided.

Keep things simple for yourself. Only purchase horses whose sire and dam are the exact same surface/distance type. Once you start getting comfortable that you know what you’re doing with distance and surface, then you can branch into horses with pedigrees that cross categories, if you desire.

All Weather is admittedly a stickier category, because it’s only been around about ten SIM years, I think. There’s a lot of AW stallions that were also adept at other surfaces. But again, keep things simple for yourself while you’re learning. Steer clear of horses with pedigrees that stagger across different surface/distance categories. Only purchase horses that you know with absolute confidence what their distance/surface type is.

Now that you know what your horse’s distance/surface category is, what do you do with that information? The answer is that you only enter that horse in races that are of the same distance and surface. That means if you’ve decided your horse is a dirt sprinter, you would only enter it in races with the distance listed in furlongs, and that say “dirt” in the description.

If you’re a SIMperior player, you can set the horse’s type (for the above example) to dirt sprinter. Therefore, when you go to enter him, only dirt sprint races that he’s eligible for will show up. That will make the entering process much, much easier!


DISTANCE AND WORKOUTS
Workout distances are very important, in relation to the surface/distance type of the horse. Here’s how the workout distances tie to racing distances:

2f and 3f workouts are for sprinters
4f workouts are for milers
5f, 6f, and 7f workouts are for routers

Also, a turf horse should be worked out on turf, a dirt horse worked out on dirt, etc.

So, if you have turf sprinter, it only makes sense to work that horse at 2 furlongs on turf, or 3 furlongs on turf. If you work the horse out at any other surface and/or distance, it will likely have a lousy time, and you’ll think you have a lousy horse.

Some experienced players apparently have never understood the relationship between workout distance and race distance. I’ve seen players that have been in SIM longer than I have that will, for example, work out sprinters at 6f. Maybe there’s a deliberate method to their madness, but I also know that a *lot* of young horses get thrown on the sales list for having lousy workouts, and sometimes it’s because the owner was working it at the wrong training distance, relative to its racing distance.

So, if you see a yearling that clearly has a dirt route pedigree, and it’s on the sales list cheap, and its only workouts have been at 3 furlongs (which are sure to have lousy times), you might want to purchase that horse and see how it works out at 5 furlongs. You might find that it’s actually a worthwhile purchase.


HOW DISTANCE AND SURFACE CAN CONFUSE YOU
Okay, so you bought a horse off the sales list because you like the name. You’ve read this article and decided that the horse was bred to be a turf miler. But now you’re confused. The horse has run a few times, and its only winning race was in a 4f sprint on All Weather. So, the horse is actually an AW sprinter, right?

Not likely.

What happened in the AW sprint he won was that there were only three other horses in the race, and none of them were AW sprinters either, so somebody had to win the race. If you’re a SIMperior player, you can see your horse’s speed figure for that winning effort. It could be a pitifully low number, like 30. Whereas, the horse’s losing races at a mile on a turf have had speed figures in the 50s. So, the horse runs much better at a turf mile than at an AW sprint. He just runs into more talented competition in his turf mile races.

Let’s say you buy an aged gelding from the sales list that was owned by a veteran player. You’ve decided that his pedigree is that of a turf router, but the gelding has placed in races at a wide variety of distance and surfaces. So, what’s going on with that? Most likely, the gelding was used by his prior owner as a “filler”. These are horses that are only entered in races with small fields (five horses or less), so that the horse will pick up some sort of purse money, no matter how poorly he runs. With filler horses, the distance and surface of the race doesn’t matter; all the owner cares about is the field size. Again, if you are a SIMperior player and can see speed figures, you’ll see that the horse will almost always have inferior numbers for the races that weren’t turf routes.


IF ANDS OR BUTS
I have tried to make this article as black-or-white as possible. It’s in your best interest, while learning to play SIM, to be very strict in thinking about the distance/surface type of each particular horse. You’ll come across some weird, successful exceptions to these guidelines I’ve given you, but don’t let that sway you from adopting these important, basic principles.

Determine which distance/surface type each of your horses is, and only enter your horses in races of the same distance/surface type.

If the sire side of the pedigree says one thing, but the dam side says another, and you aren’t sure what distance/surface type the horse is, then get rid of it, or don’t buy it in the first place.


DISTANCE ADDENDUM
I prefer to think of races distance in terms of furlongs. It you also find one unit of measurement easier to mentally process, then here’s a guide showing what popular distances are in furlongs and miles.

4.0f – half mile
5.0f – 5/8 miles
6.0f – 3/4 mile
7.0f – 7/8 mile
8.0f – one mile
8.5f – 1 1/16 miles
9.0f – 1 1/8 miles
9.5f – 1 3/16 miles
10.0f – 1 1/4 miles
11.0f – 1 3/8 miles
12.0f – 1 1/2 miles
14.0f – 1 3/4 miles
16.0f – 2 miles



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