Training and Shipping for Newbies

Original article written by Tanitha Starlet posted 14 years 3 weeks ago

Its recently been bought up in the forums, that there isn't many guides on training and shipping for new players. There's a few reasons for this...

1. Every horse is different, and prefers a different training schedule.
2. Part of the game is working out the best way to train your horses and keep them at their peak.
3. Every trainer has their own way's of training. So its a topic that often two people never agree on.

So writing a "This is how to train" guide is very dangerous. Because most people wont agree with what is written. And because what's written wont be 100% right because a lot of the mysteries of training haven't been discovered yet, so no-one in the game knows "everything" about training.

So this guide itself, is written towards NEW players, Players who want a place to start exploring their own way. It is not aimed at experienced players who already have their own way of training.

The sim itself has been around for ever, Almost since the creation of the internet and the sim is currently up to Year 26 in game with each sim year being about 20 weeks total including breaks. So thats around 12 real life years total! Training itself is new, Works came out around Y18, and the other training options and farm amenities came out recently with the introduction of SIMv4 in Y23.

The main thing with training to remember is.....
A good horse, will still be a good horse without training.
A bad horse, will be a bad horse no matter how much you train it.

Over training a horse wont improve it, but it will make it tired which will make it run bad, and can result in injuries.


***** How often to run a horse *****
Horses recoup from running a race at different speeds, Some recover from a race quickly, some take longer. In general it seems that younger horses and older horses take longer to recover. Apart from horses having different recoup speeds, each race is run differently, some races the horses have to compete harder than others. So each race can drain a horse different amounts.

So a thoroughbred could prefer 2 weeks rest, 2.5 weeks rest, 3 weeks rest or 4 weeks rest. When a horse will hit its peak again after a race varies. And giving a horse more rest that it needs pushes the horse past its peak fitness and it starts to get lazy. Judging when its optimal to race again takes a lot of trial and error and experience.

If a horse it at its peak and ready to run again after 3 weeks, if you run it again after 2 weeks, It wont be fully rested and will run slow. If you run it after 4 weeks, it will be lazy and will run slower than usual. Apart from intuition, there is a vet feature to help determine when your horses are ready to race again.

***** Shipping *****
All the above is based on the fact that you ship promptly to a close by farm after a race, leave the horse resting at a farm with amenities as long as possible, and then ship to a close by race for its next race. If a horse isn't farmed the recovery periods mentioned above need extending. If you ship too far, again the recovery times above need adjusting. IMO it is best to ship all horses straight to a farm with amenities straight after each race. What you spend in farm bills and shipping, you will easily make back by winning more races, and by being able to race your horses more often.

Shipping to the track before a race, most people do that with the simperior auto shipping feature. If you don't have simperior think about getting it, it makes a lot of difference. With auto shipping, most people set it to 3 days, which will ship your horses to the track 3 days and 20 hours before the race. This leaves the horse at the farm resting as long as possible, and also give the horse enough time to recover from a small ship before a race. If you need to ship far to your next race I find it best to ship to a farm close to the next race a week+ before.

***** Training *****
There's two types of training, training yearlings who cant race, and training horses that are old enough to race.

*Yearlings..
Yearlings can receive the normal training from day 1 as a yearling, Gallop's, Jogs, gate training, Paddock training, walks, and longe. BUT you should not give a yearling a times work until week 5, if you do it has a very high chance of being injured due to it being too young and week to handle the strain.

Since yearlings cant work week 1-5 and cant race, I find this a great time to Gallop the horse. Galloping apart from being exercise, will give you a horse rating, WOW, Wings, Nice but Hard to tell (HTT) or Not impressed. Be careful with planning the horses future based on this gallop comment, because they aren't always accurate, and also some horses can improve a lot with age.

Apart from galloping, you can also gate train, and paddock train your horses. Gate training can help your horse break well at the start of the race. and paddock training can get your horse used to the crowd so it can concentrate on winning the race in the stretch. Since there's not much else to do with your yearlings week 1-5, I do this training then.

My regime is..
Week 1 Monday (Gallop)
Week 2 Monday (Gate training + 2 Paddock trainings)
Week 3 Monday (2nd Gallop)
Week 4 Monday (Gate training + 2 Paddock trainings)
Week 5 Monday The horse is now old enough to do a timed work.

The reason I do two gallop's one week 1 and one week 3, is to get a average. Gallop's fluctuate and change, A horse that is borderline Wings/HTT can gallop wings one gallop, and HTT the second.

With the 2 gate trainings and 4 paddock trainings, this wont help you beat a better horse on race day, but it can give you a advantage over a horse of similar quality that hasn't had the training.

And if your horse wins on its first race, it will gain experience and confidence from that win, and be prime to go on and win again. Similarly a horse that loses his first race, wont get that confidence and might lose confidence, making it harder to win 2nd race out.

*Working a yearling.
yearlings are ready for a work on week 5 monday. (after the week 4 Friday races). One theory with works is that it can help you work out the horses preferred distance.

2F work , for shorter sprinters.
3F work , for longer sprinters (6.5F -> 7.5F).
4F work , for milers.
5F work , for short routers (8.25 -> 8.5F)
6F Work , For mid routers.
7F work , For longer routers.

So if for example, your yearling works great over 5F, but slow overt 6F and 7F, it could be a indication that the horse prefer's the shorter routes.

Another example, if your router had a good 4F work as well, then as a 2yo it can probably debut in the mile races, Routers with a slow 4F should probably wait longer until the 2yo router races open.

So instead of doing just one work, i prefer to do several works around the horses preferred distance, to get a better idea of what distances the horse prefers and will handle.

A tired horse will work slowely. So leave at least a week in between works. Or other training, and make sure the horse isn't too tired going into the work.

How often to work, depends on why you are working, and why you have bred horses. I breed horses to race them, So i train and work my horses as much as i can to learn more and more about my horse. A lot of people breed horses to sell them though. People who are proven experienced breeders, with superb quality mares, such as The steward, Or Eric, etc, can getaway with selling yearlings unworked and on faith for high prices. If you don't have that reputation, most buyers will buy on either the history and quality of the dam, or the horses fast work times. If you are planning on selling your yearlings you probably don't want to give it multiple works, because work times fluctuate up and down. So once you have worked the yearling over its best distance, and got a good work time, its best not to work it again in case the next work is slower.

*Training race horses.
The best training a horse an get, is racing. A horse raced regularly doesn't need training. So most horses are only trained as a yearling. The exception to this is if you buy a horse that hasn't races for a while. Some training before it races again will help to get it fit before it races. Also if you race a horse and then want to enter it into a race in 4 weeks time, it usually a good idea to give it some light training in between that 4 week break, like a gallop in the middle..

*Injury prevention.
Mary is nice enough to advise you if your horse is likely to be injured from training or not. When you goto the training page, She will give you one of two messages.

"Just choose what you want me to do and I will get right on it." If the horse can be trained without injuries.

"Be careful not to overwork or race your horses too much, or they might get hurt!" If your horse is too tired to train and might get injured if you do.

Jogging a horse is another way to get a gauge. With mary telling you if the horse is ready to go for more, or if its tired and doesn't need any more training.

And the main tool, the vet. Which can cost from $500 -> $1000 for a consultation.

***** training experimentation. ******
Most people don't know a lot about training, mainly because they are scared to accidentally make their good winning horses run slower and lose. And also because they are scared of injuring a horse and getting large vet bills. Its also possible for a horse to be permanently injured and forced to pension.

A good easy way to learn training is to buy a couple of $1 horses from the sales page, and to really work them to the point of exhaustion and then gauge their recovery time. Entering and exiting the training page, before each peace of training, will give you a updated comment from mary. So you can train safely until you get the comment "Be careful not to overwork or race your horses too much, or they might get hurt!" ..

Exaggerated training in this manor, makes it easier to see the small effects of training.

How many walks can I do before the horse is tired enough to have a risk of injury, How many jogs? how many gallops, paddock trainings, gate trainings.

Experimenting in such a way, with horses owned just for training experimentation. You will find a horse cant work twice in the one day, Mary wont let you. A horse can gallop about 4 times before the injury warning comes up. A horse can paddock train 8 times before the warning comes up. And using the vet feature during recovery timem you can get a good idea of how long each training method takes to recover from, and how tired each training feature makes a horse.


Good luck with your training, and getting your horses to their track in their peak condition.

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