You Found The Sim, Now What - A Newbie Help Guide

Original article written by Abe Froman posted 13 years 0 weeks ago

So you have just found the best sim horse racing game on the internet (this one, obviously) and now you are ready to just jump in and start succeeding. Not so fast Sparky. While this can be viewed as a simple game, there are several levels to it, that may not need to be known entirely, but knowing at least parts of it will help you enjoy your experiences in the game. I will hope to shed some light that will make your SIM experience more enjoyable. The first thing to remember when reading the rest of this article, is that it is the view I have on the game, and there may be others out there that disagree, or have other viewpoints, and that doesn't make any of us right or wrong. Also, if you are reading this, my assumption is that the very beginning of this you have already past that step, but for the few that may just join and read this article, I hope to shed some light that may have you enjoy your stay in the SIM.

So you have signed up for the SIM, you have your starter horse named and entered into a race, and you are now ready to reap the benefits of a successful stable, right? Well, I will say this, and I think a few others would likely agree, you are better off not entering your horse right away. Why? Because of the fact that you are likely going to enter your horse in the wrong race. This isn't said to be mean, but newbie after newbie enters their new horse in a race, and hopes to win, and then will see their horse run dead last, or close to it, get frustrated and then never log into the SIM again. If you are reading this, at least you have made it past the never logging in again phase.

You may also be thinking right now, that if I shouldn't enter my horse right away, what should I do? Well, my answer to that question would be to start by reading the Help section at the top of every page inside your stable. Inside the help page is links to information containing answers and helpful information to a number of topics, including SIMperior, training, injuries, buying horses, how to enter, equipment, types of races, breeding, and many others. Some go to specific pages on the SIM, others go to a FAQ section of the forum. Either way, when you are just starting the game, useful information can be found.

Now once you read some of those pages, I would still put off jumping into the SIM right away. I would recommend introducing yourself on the forum in the new player section, and reading some threads, learn the search function of the forum, and ask questions, but try to keep them somewhat specific, they are always easier to answer rather than the vague. You may also want to spend some time in the chat, getting to know some of the players, and catching passing information that may be of help. The biggest way to learn from the chat is to have an open mind, and definitely flexible enough to hear different opinions for the same question you may ask. It is also recommended that you realize that the people giving advice, for the most part have, been there done that, and they are truly trying to help, so be accepting of any information they give, and not appearing to know more than them. Also, while trying to gather some of this information, I would strongly suggest what it is you want out of the SIM, what your goals are (breeding a champ, racing older geldings, etc) and develop a plan to get there.

Back to what I mentioned earlier about putting your horse in the wrong race. You may say, but the sire has no races, so I didn't know where to enter him/her. There is plenty of information available to find this out. You could always ask in the chat or forum, but I will give 2 quick ways to figure this out. With your starter horse, it is going to be by a Create a Horse (CAH) sire, and they have no past performances. Veterans will all know what their surface/distance preferences usually are, but if you are new, you won't. One way to find this out would be to click on the progeny tab of the sires page, and looking at random offspring that show earnings (recommended to look at ones that have earned more than 20k, just to have a better shot that they are a winner). If you see a common theme, for instance, most of the ones you see have won turf races at a mile and a sixteenth or say turf race at nine furlongs, you can bet it is a turf route sire, and you will want to find races that suit him, but finding turf routes, rather than entering in a dirt sprint. The other way, is learning and using the search page of the forum. You could, for instance, input the sires name into the sire box, and select winners from the options below that, and search at what distances and surface the foals have won. This is similar to the first, and probably the better of the 2 options anyways. There is a third option, that is highly recommended if you are going to make a serious effort to play the game, and that is the SIMperior subscription, which will be talked about later.

Another very common mistake seen amongst newer players is overtraining horses, injuries, and the expensive vet bills associated with these common mistakes. If you take the time to read the help and forum sections, hopefully this won't happen to you. If a horse is racing with a regular schedule, timed workouts aren't needed, and will only tire a horse out. The more tired they are from repeated training, the more likely they are to suffer an injury, which can vary in severity and cost. Some injuries may not require a cost, or one as low as say 5k to fix, and you don't have the option to fix or not, it is automatically done. Some of the most costly ones are 20k to fix, and even worse yet, there are some injuries that force automatic retirement. That is definitely not something that you want to happen as soon as you start racing, especially with your first horse.

So beyond reading, what sort of help can you get? Well, in my opinion, the best way to help start a successful stable in this game is to befriend someone that has played a while, that is relatively accessible, and willing to help, and possibly become a mentor. Someone that has been around for a bit, and can answer questions for you, a person that you can bounce ideas off of. I don't expect you to know or find someone right away, but if you log into the chat a few times, and/or ask questions and participate in the forum, you are likely to find someone that you can get along with, and generally feel friendly around. Someone that has been here for a while, and has had some success, can easily give you the information, and encouragement to help you start your stable off right, and hopefully keep you interested in the SIM, while possibly working both ways, renewing interest for the veteran as well. In the forum, under the new player section, there is a thread created by Carolyn Eaton, that is a way to sign up for a mentor as well.

Now that you have learned more about racing, have started buying a few racers, and finally starting to have a little success, you want to start breeding mares, right? We all do, and have all been there when we started the game. With that, most every veteran will tell you to wait to breed, and likely with good reason. You are on a limited budget, starting the game with 100k SIM dollars, and having to start by purchasing horses, thus costing you more money. Well, the breeding side of the game is even more expensive, especially when done 'right'. I will be the first to admit, when I started , I started breeding (though now there is a 6 week wait before you are able to breed mares), and bred a bunch of slow horses. The mares you are able to get while a newer player, are likely to be subpar. The stallions you are likely to choose, assuming you are breeding to the right type of stallion, is likely to be on the cheaper side of stallions, and the resulting foal will likely be a claimer at best. Not only is the quality of breeding when you first start on the low side, but once you get them, you have to wait the remainder of the year you bred, the whole yearling year, and depending if it is a sprinter, miler, or router, you may have to wait up to 10 more weeks into the 2yo to get races available for your horse. All in all, you could be waiting for a long time to even see any return on your breeding investment. Say you spend 10k on a stallion (like I said, the inclination as a new player is to breed cheap), and you spend 5k getting the mare, this is a relatively cheap investment, but you will be waiting 16-25 weeks or more to get any return on that. If you spent 15k on 1-2 race horses, you will earn more purse money racing them, increasing your ability to purchase better horses. It is also highly recommended by me, though not required, to have a SIMperior subscription if you plan on breeding horses even semi seriously.

Going back to the purchasing of horses, remember the popular phrase, caveat emptor, or buyer beware. Just because a horse is cheap, doesn't make it a good purchase, as it might be cheap for a reason, and buying an expensive horse doesn't guarantee goodness. I recommend researching some horses, or possibly even asking questions before making a purchase that could be questionable. In my opinion as well, buying a bunch for $100 or cheaper horses is a good way to run bad horses, and get frustrated with the game. That isn't to say that there are $1 or $100 purchases that are worthwhile, but make sure that you see what you are buying. If a horse is bred to dirt sprint, has raced 7 times on the dirt while sprinting, and has only a 6th place finish to show as its best, it likely isn't even worth spending $1 on it, if it isn't showing some reason that it could improve. As mentioned also, just because a horse is priced at 50k doesn't mean that it is any better than a horse priced at 1k. Again, some looking at what it has done can shed a lot more light into that.

Once you have a racing barn going, you are likely, at least at first, to want to expand faster than your bankroll realistically can allow. There are several avenues to earning money, through the obvious, in racing, but also, possibly selling horses, and also writing articles. Most new players feel they don't know what to write about. The best answer, is write about something that interests you, and/or something that you are able to learn from. I spent the better part of my first break looking at workouts from stakes horses to get an idea what is a good or bad work, and since then, there are people that are putting yearling works in the forum more often, where that isn't as necessary, but it helps to do some sort of research to understand what you are dealing with, and to try and be able to assess the talent level of a young horse. I also spent the better part of my 2nd and 3rd year writing articles on newly retired stallions, and the first looks at their first crop yearling workouts, which helped give me some understanding of pedigree crosses, what was working, what wasn't and other information that I feel helped me be able to breed horses, as well as purchasing horses.

Now that it has been mentioned at least twice, let's talk about this SIMperior subscription, and what it entails. A few big assets can be found in the racing section of your barn. You are able to 'type' your horse, so that looking for available races is much easier than without them, though racing picture showing the distance/surface that is on all the races makes it easier than it used to be without it. If you have a horse, that is say a dirt sprinter, you can set the type of it to dirt sprinter on the horses page, and then when you search for the races, it will only show dirt sprints that the horse is eligible for, rather than every horse the horse is eligible for, because you obviously don't want to enter a dirt sprinter in a turf route race. Once types are set, you can actually sort through your barn by type, showing only the dirt routers, or turf sprinters, or whatever division you want to look at. Also in the racing barn, a SIMperior subscription allows you to see more information, such as when the horse is currently entered for, when it ran last, and also when its last workout was recorded. On the racing side as well, you have access to a special track for SIMperior members only, in which only current SIMperior members are able to enter horses into. A big advantage to racing comes in the form of auto shipping. As a SIMperior member, you can set up your barn to ship horses to the next race, at a preset time, from 1-12 days prior to their next race. This eliminates scratches for the reason of forgetting to ship to the track prior to a race. You also get access to speed figures for the races. Added trainer statistics are available for SIMperior members, including the ability to see breeders awards, stakes wins, maiden wins, and 2yo wins. Access to a horse whisperer will allow you to find out if your horse has a surface preference, such as an off track or dry track preference, though this doesn't mean your horse can't win on a non preferred surface. You get access to the Edge, a weekly newsletter released by The Steward. One of my favorite perks, is access to the stud book. This is invaluable when breeding, and can be a help when racing. You are able to see the stud book, and the preferred type set by the stallion owner, though this may not always be correct (almost always is though). Tons of information can be learned in the stud book. At what cost is this SIMperior account? As little as $.87 a week, when purchased in a 52 week block. Other options come in 20 weeks (essentially one SIM year), 10 weeks, and 1 week subscriptions. Well worth it for anyone that wants to take this game seriously.

Hopefully this article can shed some light into your start of a prosperous SIM barn, and a fun time playing. As mentioned earlier, these are just some of my opinions into the game, and they are neither right nor wrong, but just one way to go about it. I also want to say that I am available in game for help when I can, even though, for instance, I have not signed up for the mentor program. Feel free to contact me if needed or wanted.

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