An Overview for Those Considering Mixed Breeds

Original article written by Regina Moore posted 11 years 3 weeks ago

I suspect that a lot of players consider mixed breeds to not be “real” horse racing, and that’s fair, considering how little attention other breeds get in the grand scheme of real-life equine racing. But if you’re a player who is struggling with never having enough money, or getting flustered that all your Thoroughbreds are racing in the claiming ranks in Alaska because you never have a good horse, or simply wishing that you had more racing during the week… you might want to give mixed breeds some consideration, even if they never become part of your long-term goals.

Which breed(s) is the best to expand into will depend on what you most want to get out of the endeavor. This article is intended to give an overview of the available breeds.

All mixed breeds race on Wednesday nights, with an 8:00 PM Pacific post time. The one exception is the Week 16 Steward’s Cup races for Standardbreds, which race Tuesday with a 1:00 PM Pacific post time.


DEFINITIONS
First, the term “mixed breed” can be confusing. It might sound like mongrel or part-bred horses; but it’s purebred horses, where the circuit represents a mixture of breeds. Each horse only races against its own breed.

In SIM, many of us use the term “mixed breeds” to refer to any non-Thoroughbred. There are six such breeds – Appaloosas, Arabians, Paints, Quarter Horses, Standardbred trotters, and Standardbred pacers. The latter two are also known as “harness horses”, since they pull sulkies, rather than having a rider.

However, the Steward has made a point of saying that the actual “mixed breeds” don’t include the two harness breeds, which is the same as real life. In fact, the “Mixed Breed” circuit in SIM is separate from the “Harness” circuit. Yet, the Forum doesn’t have a separate board for Harness. So, any discussion of Standardbreds (the extremely little that there is) takes place on the “Mixed Breed Racing” board.

For simplicity, this article uses the term “mixed breeds” to refer to all non-Thoroughbred breeds.

The term “stock breed” is not an official SIM term, but some of us use it to refer to the breeds that originated in the western United States, and which all race at 870yds and under – Appalooasas, Paints, and Quarter Horses. (In other words, the breeds that were traditionally used to herd cattle and other stock.)

In addition, the Appaloosas (known for their spots) and Paints (known for their patches of color) can be spoken of collectively as “color breeds”. In real life, Appys and Paints sometimes race against each other. That doesn’t happen in SIM, but the two breeds are structured almost exactly alike, in terms of distance categories, tracks, and available races.


DISTANCE CATEGORIES
All mixed breeds race on dirt.

Like Thoroughbreds, the stock breeds each have three distance categories – sprints (under 400 yards), mids (400yds), and routes (over 400yds).

Arabians only have two distance categories – sprints (4 furlongs, 5 furlongs, 6 furlongs) and routes (1-1/4 miles, 1-1/2 miles, 2 miles).

Standardbred trotters and pacers each only race at one mile. This can be a blessing or a curse. The good news is that if you feel you’re spinning your wheels with your Thoroughbreds, while determining what specific distance each horse prefers, then Standardbreds will keep you from having any such headaches. The bad news is, if your Standardbred keeps getting badly beaten, you have nowhere else to go, in terms of trying a different distance.


SHIPPING
If you’ve ever fretted over shipping your Thoroughbreds a long distance for a race, take heart that you won’t have any such concerns with mixed breeds.

The stock breeds and Arabians all race in the western half of the U.S. This means that the shipping won’t ever cost more than $200. The Standardbred trotters can reach all their tracks, which are all located in the eastern half of the U.S., with $100 or $110 ships.

The above is also true most of the time for Standardbred pacers, but know that pacers have a track, Harness Expo, located off by itself in southern California. So, it can be a long ship of roughly $300, if one wants to move between a track in the northeast to Harness Expo.


FIELD SIZE
The competitiveness of the mixed breeds varies with each breed. I did a search on the yearling crop for each breed, to get an idea of its popularity – and therefore competitiveness – relative to the other breeds. However, the total number of yearlings is only part of the story. Since different breeds have different numbers of distance categories, I think it’s more accurate to divide the yearlings by number of distance categories, to get the approximate number competing in each category.

Here is the number of yearlings, along with the average number per distance category. They’re listed by popularity, lowest to highest, based on the average number in each distance category.

Appaloosas – 904 or 301 for each distance category
Paints – 1150 or 383 for each distance category
Arabians – 801 or 400 for each distance category
Standardbred pacers – 753, all one distance category
Quarter Horses – 2431 or 810 for each distance category
Standardbred trotters – 999, all one distance category

Appaloosas have always been the least popular breed. Since they have just as many races as the other stock breeds, it means they have small field sizes, including for stakes races. It’s a rare Appy that never places in a stakes in its career, if it has three full seasons of racing. I’ve had many Appys that were quite ordinary, easily accumulate five figures in earnings, due to running in small stakes fields. In fact, this season I’ve campaigned 42 Appaloosas that have started at least once. Ten of them – almost 25% -- have career earnings in excess of $100,000, and the most of those aren’t standouts in their division. One is even a mere “hard to tell” galloper.

So, if you’re a player that feels flustered that you never have horses good enough to earn stakes money, I would recommend getting into Appys. A so-so horse can do surprisingly well, if its owner is willing to take the time to keep an eye on field sizes as race day approaches, and choose the next race accordingly.

In contrast, both the Standardbred breeds, as well as Quarter Horses, tend to be highly competitive, with larger fields. That’s not surprising, considering that they’re the three breeds with the best purses.


PURSE AMOUNTS AND QUALITY
Mixed breeds don’t have the earnings potential of Thoroughbreds. A top mixed breed is never going to earn as much as a top Thoroughbred. But there can be quite a bit of variation between the mixed breeds.

The color breeds (Appys and Paints) and Arabians have the worst purses, with many of the overnight (non-stakes) races, including open allowance races, only being $10,000. Most of the listed stakes are only 50k to 75k. Graded stakes races are scarce, and Week 16 Steward’s Cup races are the only Grade 1 stakes. There is one exception to the latter, that being Arabian routers, which have an additional Grade 1 stakes Week 14.

Below are the breeds by the most carded Grade 1 stakes, other than the Steward’s Cup races. By carded, I mean official SIM stakes. Players can always sponsor Grade 1 stakes, and there has been quite a bit of that activity of late in the Quarter Horse breed, but those races aren’t included below.

Standardbred Trotters – four Grade 1 stakes, plus SC races
Standardbred Pacers – three Grade 1 stakes, plus SC races
Quarter Horses – three Grade 1 stakes (including one with $1 million purse), plus SC races
Arabians – one Grade 1 stakes, plus SC races
Paints – no Grade 1 stakes, except SC races
Appaloosas – no Grade 1 stakes, except SC races

It’s important to note that most Steward’s Cup races for mixed breeds have considerably smaller purses than those for Thoroughbreds. The purses range from a mere 125k for some of the color breed races, up to 500k for each of the Standardbred races.


CLAIMING RACES
The mixed breeds have far fewer claiming races than Thoroughbreds, even after many additional claimers have been added in recent years. For any breed/distance, there might not be a single claiming race in any given week, and what races there are can’t cover all the conditions and price levels that players might desire.

So, in short, don’t buy a mixed breed with a poor race record, thinking that you’re going to race it in cheap claimers. An appropriately cheap claiming race might not come around for a while. Mixed breeds don’t have any tracks that are the equivalent of the Alaska tracks for Thoroughbreds.


RACING LONGEVITY
My recollection is that, early in the history of mixed breeds (they were introduced Year 23), the Steward indicated that the Standardbred breeds had an emphasis on youth, and horses were going to have their best earnings potential as youngsters. In addition, more recently, the Steward has indicated that the true mixed breeds (not harness) don’t fizzle out with age the way Thoroughbreds do.

I can only speak from my own experience. I play all distance categories within all breeds. I have noticed that many of my mixed breed horses have their best success as 4yos or older, including the Standardbreds. This might be explained by other horses in the same crop being retired by 4yos, or given up on, and that makes the competition easier for a player like me, who will keep on with a horse that is at least earning something in most of its races.


EQUIPMENT
Most breeds have the same nine equipment pieces to choose from, as do Thoroughbreds.

However, the two harness breeds only have five pieces of equipment. So, if you’re a player that’s willing to use workouts to determine equipment needs, you’ll have much fewer pieces to test if you own harness horses.


WORKOUTS
Workouts are easy with harness horses. They only race at one mile, and they only workout at one mile.

Arabians are a little strange in that there’s two racing categories – sprints and routes – but there’s three workout categories. It seems obvious that 4 furlong workouts are for sprinters, and 6 furlong workouts are for routers. I have no idea what the purpose is for 5 furlong workouts.

The color breeds – Appys and Paints – have the opposite situation. They have three racing categories, but only two workout distances – 300yds and 350yds. What’s more, the sprinters usually dominate both workout distances. So, if you have a mid distance (400yd horse) or a router (870yd), it’s pointless to compare its work times to the top times at either distance, because the fastest times will be from sprinters.

The Quarter Horses have a similar situation as the Appys and Paints, in that it’s usually the sprinters that are going to be fastest at any workout distance. The difference is that Quarter Horses have four workout distances. The latter makes sense, I suppose, if one considers the combined 550/650yd racing distances to be their own unofficial category.


SPEED FIGURES
If you’re a SIMperior player, you have access to speed figures. If you’ve ever been flustered at the impossibility of making sense of your Thoroughbred running a 72 speed figure for a winning race, and then running a 58 while finishing fourth its next out, know that your nerves will rest easier with mixed breeds.

Mixed breeds tend to run much more consistent speed figures from one race to the next, regardless of how they finish. This is all the more true of the stock breeds, which never run longer than 870 yards. (As I understand it, the shorter distances means there’s less room for the speed figure to fluctuate.)

Assuming your mixed breed is racing at its proper distance category, if it runs a 68 speed figure in its debut, you can expect it to run within a five points of that, in either direction, the vast majority of its future races. Or, put another way, you pretty much know the quality of horse you’ve got within its first couple of starts.


ACQUIRING MIXED BREEDS
Just as with Thoroughbreds, you’re unlikely to have a high quality mixed breed up and fall into your lap. Even if you have money to spend, it might be difficult finding a decent horse to buy. But for the most part, if you do find a decent horse, it’s probably going to cost quite a bit less than its Thoroughbred counterpart.

I’ll argue again that, when it comes to Appaloosas, you don’t necessarily need a quality horse to make decent money. That might be true, as well, to a lesser extent with Paints.

There are some players that hold annual auctions for youngsters of the stock breeds and Arabians. I don’t recall any regular auctions for either of the harness breeds. (I myself hold an annual all-breed filly and mare auction toward the end of the year, but that’s mostly breeding stock and never has youngsters.)

Also, if you make it known that you're looking to get into a certain breed, veteran players in that breed might provide you with some race-ready horses to get started.

There is an effort to get more players into mixed breeds in general, with player Chris Everett having started a “Mixed Up Program”, which is intended to be similar to the “Dare to Dream” Thoroughbred program, where winners of specific races can win a quality mixed breed yearling. See the “Mixed Up Program” thread near the top of the New Player board for more details. (You don’t have to be a new player in SIM to participate.)

Regardless of which breed you favor, you can spend 3,000 game points and Create a Horse. Just bear in mind that if you create a yearling or 2yo, it’ll need at least two workouts before it can start. If you create an Arabian, it can’t race until age 3 (see Breed Specific Comments, below). Also, Create a Horse is a gamble in terms of the quality of horse you'll get.


BREEDING YOUR OWN
Since mixed breeds with good racing potential can be scarce, beyond various yearling auctions, you might want to get started with breeding your own. Of course, that means acquiring mares. If you can’t find any appropriate mares or fillies on the sales list, or any available to lease, you can spend 6000 game points and Create a Mare.

The good news with breeding mixers is that stud fees are generally quite a bit cheaper than for Thoroughbreds. Mixed breed stud fees over 20k are overall few, and most breeds have many stud fees 10k and lower. Mares are generally cheaper, too. So, breeding a few decent mixed breeds is generally going to cost less than trying to breed a few decent Thoroughbreds.

However, I do think that Appaloosa studs, in particular, have some shockingly high stud fees, considering how cheap the purses are. (A non-stakes horse would have to win four races, with 10k purses each, just to earn back a 20k stud fee.) Those fees can be defended by the fact that small fields make it easier for an ordinary horse to rack up stakes earnings. But bear in mind that the higher stud fee paid, just like a higher purchase price paid, leaves smaller room to make a healthy profit. Thankfully, there are still plenty of decent Appy studs standing for 10k or less.

(There are currently 84 Appaloosas at stud. A whopping 15, or 18%, stand for fees of 15k or higher. Contrast that with Paints, where only 7 of 100 studs – 7% -- stand for 15k or higher. Quarter Horses – where good horses have much greater earnings potential, but lesser horses struggle -- also have 7%, or 10 studs out of 137, that stand for 15k or higher.)

Between trotters and pacers, the pacers definitely have much higher stud fees, though the earnings potential are the same as for trotters. (Actually, a little less, considering that trotters have an additional Grade 1 stakes that pacers don’t have.)

In short, the breeds with the most friendly stud fees, relative to earnings potential, are Quarter Horses and trotters.


SOCIAL NETWORK
Some Quarter Horse players have recently declared on the Forum that Quarter Horse players are the friendliest players in the SIM, especially when it comes to helping those new to the breed. I don’t see any reason to dispute that claim. Certainly, they probably have the most chatter on the Mixed Breed Racing board. Most notably, there are some lucrative stakes races being sponsored, many with new players in mind.

The Arabian players have their own thread on the Forum, demonstrating their enthusiasm for their breed.

There are “Weekly Trotter News” articles being written by Gigi Gofaster, though otherwise the trotter corner of the world is rather silent in SIM. There is also a lot of silence from the pacing world.

Appys and Paints don’t get much talk, though the Paints tend to get more between the two, if only because there are more players.


BREED SPECIFIC COMMENTS
Appaloosas – Once again, the easiest breed to be successful in.

Arabians – It’s extremely important to note that they don’t start racing until the age of three. There have thankfully been more races of late just for 3yos, but there aren’t SIMMY Awards or Steward’s Cup races just for 3yos. So, in essence, one can say that the only meaningful age category is “3yo and up”.

Paints – Though they’re structured exactly the same as Appaloosas, they have a higher population, and so are a more competitive breed than Appys.

Quarter Horses – Highly competitive, highest purses of the stock breeds, and a lot of player interaction. One aspect that I consider to be a drawback is that the 550yd and 650yd distances are officially listed in SIM as routes, along with 870yds. Yet, actual racing experience shows that 550yd/650yd horses are much more interchangeable with the mid distance 400yd horses, and don’t run as well against 870yd horses. Therefore, when SIMperior players filter their horse type by distance, it’s very frustrating to call a Quarter Horse a “mid/miler” horse, and miss the 550yd and 650yd races that are equally appropriate. Or, call a 550yd/650yd a “router”, and missing the 400yd races, but also seeing 870yd races that the horse won’t do well in. Or, call the horse “unspecified” to see all races, and frequently make the mistake of entering the horse in a sprint or 870yd race. Also, this situation creates the same problem with categorizing stallions that specialize in 550yd/650yd races.

Standardbred Pacers – A single player dominates the upper levels of the breed. Combine that with 999 yearlings in the only distance category, and it’s obvious that this is a very tough breed to break into. What’s more, the stud fees are the steepest of all mixed breeds. Also, note that 2yos don’t start racing until Week 8.

Standardbred Trotters – Lots of pluses over all other breeds. Yet, the single distance category with a crop of over 750, lack of horses with potential quality available for sale, and lack of outward social player activity, can still make it a tough breed to break into. As with pacers, 2yos don’t start racing until Week 8.


FINAL NOTES
I have a chart on my website that summarizes mixed breeds in table form:

http://www.magicravenranch.com/mixedbreeds.html


I had the good fortune of joining SIM the same year that mixed breeds started (Year 23). The mixers have added a tremendous amount of enjoyment to my SIM play. They’ve allowed me Steward’s Cup winners, when I otherwise would have none, and a tremendous amount of additional earnings, which have allowed me to buy more quality Thoroughbreds, particularly at Steward-bred auctions.

Even if you don’t consider mixers to be a serious aspect of your SIM play, nor a factor in your long-term SIM goals, you still might want to give the mixed breeds some serious thought, to supplement your SIM enjoyment and overall strategy, that you might find lacking with your Thoroughbreds.

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