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Purchasing Better Racers
Original article written by Chris Allex posted 10 years 4 weeks agoAcquiring a stable that is adequate to be competetive with, is maybe the most daunting of tasks, facing new players early in their sim career. New players make mistakes, and your nearly set up to do so when given a handful of virtual money that you have not actually had to work for. I would imagine that the first mistake for most, is heading off to the sales page to buy yourself a whole stable full of top notch racers with all of that glorious cash at hand. I can't say that I would blame you, nor can I say that I myself, was smart enough to have known any better!
Around the end of my first week on the sim, I began to evaluate my barn relative to what I considered would be my main competition at Trial Park. My first thoughts, "Wow... these guys had some really fast horses!" It took yet another day or so for it to sink in, that maybe I had just been buying some really slow horses! Not only had I been making some very poor purchases, but I had done so quite spectacularly, paying well more than what some of these horses were worth!
An example of some of these "awesome first day purchases" was an HTT mare whom I will not name in respect to the seller. She sure looked the part! (I remember thinking.) She had great times, and I really thought that she would be well worth the 15k, and may even be the best in my barn. Of course with my barn evaluation done, I discovered that her times were mediocre at best. How in the world could I have made such a mistake? I really thought this horse had great workouts and descent enough breeding. Here I realized my mistake. 47.40 on the turf, and 47.40 on the dirt are miles apart! I also quickly realized that many of the horses you see on the sales page, are not worth nearly what their asking price is.
What can you do to safe gaurd yourself? I'm sure that among the biggest of helps, would be a mentor whom you can consult with before making larger purchases, but for now, I will assume that you are hard headed such as I was, and in many ways still am. Even if you have a mentor at hand I, would suggest this approach to sizing up what you see on the sales page, because let's face it. Your mentor is not going to be at your beckoning at all times.
Firstly, you should establish what type of horses you intend to be looking for. If you want a bit of a mixed bag as I did, that is ok too, but beware. What you are looking for on each surface, with each breed will vary greatly if you are judging by their previous workouts.
Simhorseracing.com has some great features available to everyone for sizing up workouts of horses you intend to purchase. Simply click on the racing tab located on the menu bar of the website. From there, you can navigate to workout times of all horses, for any particular week, on any given surface, at any distance. Make up a simple chart that will show workout times at each distance and surface for the types of horses you intend to purchase. For myself, I used times that would put my horses just barely in the top 10%. Granted most horses that are of that caliber are not going to be very affordable to a new player but you will at least have something to gage what your looking at on the sales page!
Of course keep in mind that workout times, are not necessarily indicative of a sure fire winner, so be sure that you are using workout information in conjunction with breeding and progeny information. Knowing the better sire producers by going through the stud book is quite invaluable. Another factor to keep in mind is equipment. Many times you can tell and many times it may be kind of vague looking, as to wether or not the horses proper equipment has been found. A horse running with proper equipment will most often shave a considerable amount of time from their workout.
In the end, do your homework. Put in the hours staring at the studbook. Make yourself some simple workout time charts. Learn who the better breeders in the sim are. A little work now will save you many headaches down the road. Most importantly have fun and good luck with your next purchase!