Useful Tools: Spreadsheets For Success

Original article written by Chris Allex posted 10 years 1 week ago

As new players, we are going to overlook many aspects of the sim that most veteran players have already come to know for the most part. Ignoring many of these aspects of the sim can lead to your demise very quickly as a new trainer with limited income, and a less than scary barn in comparison to the more seasoned trainers. To help battle this, spreadsheets can bring most of this to light, increasing your odds of success both on track, and off track in the sim.

So what would you use spreadsheets for? Well, the most popular use for most is to use spreadsheets to monitor their success with money, answering the question, "Where is my dollar going and what is the return?" Spreadsheets are a great tool for showing where your stable is weak and where it is strong. Are those claims really making you money? Are you using up all profits with the vet? Am I shipping $500 dollar claimers too far to profit? Which types of horses am I making the most profit on? All of these questions and many more can be answered with absolute certainty when compiling the data into a spreadsheet.

Probably the first spreadsheet I had created was for equipment percentages as I had noticed that certain types of equipment was much more previlant in the sim than others. What better way to find out which types are the most common, than to make up a spreadsheet graph? An example of my early spreadsheet equipment graph can be found on page 2 of this post. http://www.simhorseracing.com/simforum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=27644&start=15

Currently, I myself have not delved terribly deep into the monetary situations that spreadsheets can help you become familiar with. Instead, after making my equipment % spreadsheet graph, I concentrated my spreadsheet use around the horses that I currently own in my stable. So, what are the benefits of using a spreadsheet for your stable? To be honest, I did not really know at first. I simply decided that it would be a great way to get to know my horses and as with anything else.. The more you know the better.

My runners spreadsheets started out meager enough at first, and I believe an example of that can be seen on the forums here http://www.simhorseracing.com/simforum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=29448 I really just started out wanting to know what I had in the barn, and how they compared to each other individually on each surface. Of course this can kind of be done within the sim, but not to the extent that I wanted to see things. I began the painstaking task of logging all of the current data for each individual horse, including workout times at each distance, and eventually speed figures for each of thier last 4 races along with a lot of other data that would show upon hover over each particular entry such as the dates and what type of race it was etc.

I created three seperate spreadsheets. One for Turf, Dirt, and AW runners in my stable along with three other spreadsheets for my Turf, Dirt, and AW yearlings. After completing all of them, I sat back and looked at what I had done, feeling good in the fact that I had spent so much time logging data on each particular horse, that I had come to know each of them a little better. It wasn't until about a week later, that I realised the true significance of what I had done.

By placing all of my horses on surface specific spreadsheets my attention was at first drawn to figuring out which horses were my fastest working runners who showed the most promise in their workouts. Of course that was quite quickly done, but later on, and after aquiring around 20 horses per spreadsheet, a major revelation hit me in the face! I had been looking at two of my fastest 5f workers who had also worked other distances. Until that point, I honestly just hadn't bothered to look at the longer works too awefully hard. My two fastest wow stakes runners at 5f, were actually being outrun at the 7f mark! Strange I thought, that a mere wings could outwork both of my wows at that distance! Now it hits home... "Wow!! No wonder this little wings I've been running is struggling to hit the board! He simply needed to go longer." Next out, I took that wings longer for his first win.

That is just one example of what can be gained by using spreadsheets as a form of handicapping your horses. Rather than handicapping them against the competition, I had successfully handicapped my own horse against my other horses to find his strengths! As more information is being added to my spreadsheets on a daily basis, I'm sure that I will find other useful tid-bits in the same manner.

Of course by now if your still reading this, you may be asking yourself, "Is it worth it?" I assure you that in a large barn it would be terribly taxing and would quickly become more of a chore than I would like myself, which is one of the reasons I have decided to keep my own barn on the small side in comparison to most other players. If you do decide to use spreadsheets however, it will become apparent to you later on down the road that they can actually be a valuable and a completely free resource for you, provided you don't mind doing a lot of work to keep up with it. Keeping your spreadsheets updated is only for those who are very strong willed though! Trust me! It really is a chore at times!

So your in! Great.. Now where do you begin? Firstly you will need software. I myself have been using Kingsoft Spreadsheets which is a free download, but there are many others out there as well, and if your fortunate enough to have excel, then I'd say go with that. Another tip to getting you on the road to success would be to ask around for example spreadsheets. Many players are more than willing to share their own spreadsheets, giving you a guideline and maybe even new ideas of what you would like to include on your own spreadsheets.

Whatever you decide and whatever your goals with spreadsheets be, I can definately say that they will in some way or another, add experience to you as a player wether you are a seasoned veteran, or a new player. Good luck and happy logging!

-- Chris Allex

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