The Real Problem with Wows and Scarys

Original article written by Regina Moore posted 9 years 0 weeks ago

Like everyone else in SIM, I have scarys that can’t win a stakes race, and wows that can’t break their maiden.

Unlike so many other players, the above fact doesn’t make me mad or discouraged.

When I am enjoying myself so much in SIM, while others are so often complaining, I feel compelled to ask myself what the difference is. Why the things that upset so many others don’t seem to upset me.

Perhaps it’s because that, while many of my wows and scarys don’t own up to my expectations, some of my wings and “hard to tell” horses are far surpassing expectations. Of course, similar successes are not going to be the case for those players which dump, or otherwise ignore, all their horses that gallop less than wow.

What irritates me at times in SIM isn’t my under-performing wows and scarys. Instead, it’s the way the attitude of the game has become one where *all that matters*, when it comes to young horses, is wows and scarys. Everything else is a throwaway and not worth talking about, nor worth an effort toward success.

Gee, if I threw away all my wings and htts, I wouldn’t have three of my eight current stakes winners this year.

This season, I was surprised to win a stakes with a wings 4yo AW sprint filly. I’ve won a stakes with a wings 3yo turf miler colt that has a 5: 3-2-0 $113,000 record, and was second last year in a Grade 1. I’ve won a stakes with a 3yo wings Quarter Horse sprinter, though granted that was in a restricted event with a small field.

Two years ago, I had a 2yo AW sprinter, a mere “hard to tell” galloper, that scored a 7: 4-3-0 $71,950 record while placing in two stakes races. He went belly-up at three and was pensioned by mid year. But do you think I felt he was a pointless member of my stable, in a year when I had 59 stakes winners? Heck, no! He was a delight to race as a juvenile. So much wonderful, unexpected fun.

In Year 36, I ran a “hard to tell” Arabian sprint filly in a Week 3 stakes race, since there were only three others horses. I thought she’d pick up some secondary stakes money. Instead, she won. The stakes race the next week also had a small field, so I risked running her on a one-week turnaround, and she was second. I gave her three weeks off, and yet another stakes came up soft, and she was third. In her first three starts, this pokey filly, who couldn’t run a fig faster than 69, earned $41,200. When I ran her in a NW2, she was badly beaten, and was retired at the end of the year. So, my worthless filly picked up a nice little sum of money her first three starts, all in stakes, while some players in the breed complained about there not being enough stakes races to accommodate all the wows and scarys.

I could go on and on with other examples, but it would just be belaboring the point.

That point is, opportunities are all around for not-so-good horses to do well. The problem, I think, is that most players are so focused on their wows and scarys, that they’re completely blind to the opportunities that are staring them in the face with their “lesser” horses (assuming they’ve even bothered to keep any of their lesser horses).

In her recent article on stud fees, The Steward said, “I'm about to go off on a rant about stakes races - there are some VERY bad stakes races out there that could be won by those sad wows in allowances - but that's not the point of this particular article, so I will stop myself.” I tend to think that, when she says “bad stakes races”, she’s talking about situations like the above examples, where lesser horses can pop up and win, despite poor speed figures. Those are situations where my barn has a whole lot of fun, while others are complaining about their “sad wows”.

Right now, early Week 4 of Year 39, my Thoroughbred 2yos have a 13: 7-4-2 record. Of those six horses that have won seven races, four are wings. Two of those four wings wins were in maiden special weight races, while the third was in a 32k maiden claimer, and the fourth in a 17.5k maiden claimer. None of these were Alaska races. These wings horses were ones I didn’t intend to start until later in the year, after many of the scary and wow horses had cleared out of the maiden ranks. But when the fields come up soft and/or small, I’ll gladly put my little “worthless” wings horses right in there and try to nab a win. That’s what I mean by taking advantage of opportunities. It’s kind of difficult to notice opportunities for one's wings and htt horses, when one is moaning and groaning about all the disappointments with their wows and scarys.

So, I have to ask… why is there so much emphasis on wows and scarys, when I can win races and stakes money with wings and even some htt horses? I think the answer is that many players have an erroneous perception that wows and scarys are the only horses that they can have fun and success with.

When listing out their goals for the new year on the forum, most players finish with the goal to “have fun”. Yet, it seems that a lot of players aren’t having fun. They’re too busy complaining about the failings of their wows and scarys. Yet, the fun is out there. I see and experience it all the time, and this has been going on for many game years. I just wish other players would open their eyes to what their throwaway horses can do for them, if they’d only bother to take advantage of the easy situations that pop up at times.

So, as I see it, the real problem with wows and scarys is that they’ve caused a lot of players to have tunnel vision about what it takes to have fun and success with a SIM horse.

Show me a horse that can win three cheap claiming races in a row, and if he’s one of mine, I’ll say, “gollygeewow!” That horse probably won’t be a wow or a scary, but he’ll still be a whole lot of fun... and quite a success story.

---

Back to Racing articles