Helpful Tips For New Players - The Speed Figure

Original article written by Mr. Lord Rich posted 11 years 1 week ago

Hello Simhorseracing.com Community,

I am writing this little article to help a some of our newer players with some tips of what to look for when trying to determine what types of races to enter your horses in.

The focus on this article or leaning more towards the thoroughbred type of race horse since that is what I have had the most experience in racing since I joined the Simhorseracing.com community.

Now in one of my previous articles I mentioned purchasing a "SIMperior" account and all the valuable benefits that come along with it. One of these benefits is key in determining how a horse may fair moving forward throughout his career. This is the speed figure.

The speed figure is a good way to judge if you possibly have a good racing horse. After each race, all horses that involved in the race are given a speed figure. This is a number between 0 and 100. The higher the number, the faster the horse ran based on the race type and field.

For my judging purposes on choosing the race to place my horses in, I go by the following. Anything time your horse races and is given a speed figure between 60 to 70, this means they are racing at a good level. If a horse if given a speed figure below 60 you might want to drop them down into a less difficult type of race. The same goes for if your horse is given a speed figure greater than 70, I would suggest moving your horse to a more difficult level of race.

I categorize the difficulty of races as follows:

1) Claim Races:
these types of races can range from a minimum of $500.00 claim race to a maximum of $100,000.00 claim race. Obviously the higher the claim amount, the more difficult the race should be. Also there are Maiden claiming races which only horses that have never won a race are eligible for and NW2 or NW3 or NW4 claim races which is for horses that have won a race previously, but have not won a 2nd race, 3rd race or 4th race depending on the type. Most of the horses in these races will be running with speed figures ranging from 0 to 70.

2) Allowance Races:
these types of races do not allow for claims and are where you see most horses placed if the owner does not want to lose their horse to a claim, but does not quite feel that their horse is stakes material. Or it could possibly be that there is just not a great stakes race they want to put their horse in so they are just going to give them a race to keep them fresh while they wait for the next stakes race to enter them in. Most of the horses in these types of races will be running with speed figures ranging from 60 to 80.

3) Stakes Races:
In these races you will find the cream of the crop in terms highly skilled horses. Most of the horses in these races have dominated at all of the lower levels and are now earning bid money for their owners. Most of these horses are running with speed figures above 80.

Remember, when reviewing a horses race history. keep an eye on their speed figure as this often is the best indicator when determining if your horse is where he/she needs to be or if you should think about either moving him/her to a difference level the next time.

Good luck out there.

-Pete

---

Back to New Players articles