The Conflicts of Playing Multiple Roles in SIM

Original article written by Regina Moore posted 11 years 1 week ago

Most real racehorses have three distinct human elements in their lives: their breeder, their owner, and their trainer. In SIM, each player wears the hats of owner and trainer, and very often that of breeder, as well. Sometimes, it can feel a little schizophrenic playing all three roles at once, when it concerns the same horse.

SITUATION: 3yo has just gone 8: 0-0-0.
TRAINER: Will you please get this worthless nag out of my barn?
OWNER: Right, it’s not much fun watching him get clobbered every single race.
BREEDER: But wait, the maiden fields are only going to get smaller with time, and he’s going to hit the board eventually. Chances are, one day he’ll win, especially with all the 4yo&up maiden races next season. I’m shooting for breeding 90%+ winners, you know. It’s a gross failure to not have a horse ever win.

SITUATION: Horse that galloped “claimer”, by a stallion with a 30k stud fee, is debuting in a 7.5k maiden claimer.
TRAINER: He’s in the right spot to win right out of the box.
OWNER: Wait a minute. I’m going to lose a whole lot of money if he’s claimed, even if he wins.
TRAINER: Do you want to win races, or do you want to be an also ran? He’ll be over his head in a 32k claimer.
BREEDER: Keep him right where he is. I don’t care if he’s claimed or not. If he wins, that’s another success story for the farm.

SITUATION: Older filly has been off the board three allowance races in a row.
TRAINER: Time to drop her into claimers.
OWNER: It would be nice to see her get another win before retirement.
BREEDER: Don’t you dare drop her into a claimer. She’s royally bred, and I don’t want to risk losing her as a broodmare.

SITUATION: There’s no logical place to run a stakes horse, except in a tough, lucrative stakes with a small field.
TRAINER: I’d rather ship far to an allowance race and win a race. Better yet, let’s sponsor something.
OWNER: But he’ll get a lot of money in the stakes, even if he just beats one horse and is fourth.
BREEDER: He’s already a stakes winner and that’s the best success for me. I don’t care what you do.

SITUATION: A well-training youngster is for sale by another player, with a high price tag.
TRAINER: Let’s go get him, before somebody else does. I’ve got nothing else in the barn, in his division, that looks as good.
OWNER: Wait a minute. He’s way over-priced. I know from too much unfortunate experience that I’ll never get my money back out of him.
BREEDER: What are you doing buying horses that I didn’t breed? Have you so little faith in your own homebred crop?

SITUATION: A youngster has just won his MSW debut with a nice speed figure.
TRAINER: I’m going to build on his confidence and put him in a NW2.
OWNER: Look at that speed figure! Let’s put him in a stakes to see how he measures up. He just might win.
BREEDER: I vote for a stakes race. Black type will make all his relatives at the farm look good.

SITUATION: A stallion has been at stud a while and hasn’t sired anything of note.
BREEDER: It’s time to pension him or offer him for sale. He’s not serving any useful purpose, and it’s sort of embarrassing to have him on the stud roster.
TRAINER: I don’t care what you do with a retired horse.
OWNER: He’s not hurting anything by remaining at stud. If anyone wants to breed to him, even if such happens just once a year, I may as well collect the stud fee.


Sometimes in SIM, me, myself, and I don’t get along very well.

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