Complaint

[Eric Gray]

First, let me start by saying that I love the sim. It's has been fantastic to me in my time here and I've really enjoyed everything that it has to offer.
But.......... I have a complaint that I really don't understand. I recently retired this turf sprinter to stud, https://www.simhorseracing.com/horse.ph ... ID=1676199

Some might say that I retired him too early and I won't necessarily argue. He had a solid if not stellar career winning a few listed stakes but nothing big. His best race was probably third in the Pegasus Dash. He was a freak with the shed tag. Having a couple of less than desired finishes, I decided to retire him, mainly to get a little jump on the end of the year breeding but also because I was excited to have an inhouse stud in another division besides DR. You can imagine my disappointment when I hypoed him with my 2 TS blue hens. The one which had flat A's with all 11 previous hypos came up a B+ and the one with mostly A- and B+ was a FLAT B.

Am I wrong in expecting better from a Freak shed horse or am I missing something?

[Sara Julin]

To put it frankly. Don't trust the breeding shed comment. EVER. Don't retire a colt/stallion early because it has a breeding shed comment in hopes of a top stallion and to get him out there before the millionaires comes along at the end of the year.
I've retired at least 2 stallions earlier because they did have the breeding comment. None of them hypo nicely, and none of them has produced anything remotely nice.
So don't trust the comment. I don't anymore. My stallions run until they cannot run anymore, and I refused to retire them early just because the computer tells me their future is in the breeding shed.

[Rochelle Bos]

The breeding shed comment only means that their racing ability is below their breeding.

So you said he won a few listed stakes, so however the game rates stallions, his breeding ability would reflect being higher than that. It can be a hair’s width difference, or a huge difference.

So of you compare his racing career to the stallions who hypoed A/A-/B+ with your mates, how does he compare?

[Brian Leavitt]

I agree. Ive had similar experiences, too. Im currently trying to change my sim racing philosophy and institute a policy of not retiring any intact colts until they have like 3 or 4 completely noncompetitive races in a row and also NEVER even LOOK for longer career/breeding shed comment on colts.

[Gwen Morse]

First, let me start by saying that I love the sim. It's has been fantastic to me in my time here and I've really enjoyed everything that it has to offer.
But.......... I have a complaint that I really don't understand. I recently retired this turf sprinter to stud, https://www.simhorseracing.com/horse.ph ... ID=1676199

*snip*

Am I wrong in expecting better from a Freak shed horse or am I missing something?

Don't worry, Eric you're not the only one confused by this. This happens pretty much every season.

The "breeding shed" gallop label and "hypos" are based on different hidden information on our horses.

"Breeding shed" (or Longer Career) comments are similar to the BSA label (blue hen/star/etc.) for mares, or gallops (freak/stakes/etc.) on racers. They look at single numbers and let us know whether the racing number is larger/smaller than the breeding number. You (hopefully) wouldn't retire a colt early for breeding just because he said "freak". It's the same with the BS/LC labels - it's not enough to decide when to retire your horse.

Hypos (which are a better standard of breeding quality than gallop labels) are based on comparing a stallion and mare's 3-generation pedigree and doing some mysterious stuff to give us a letter grade. To be clear -> every hypo is based on a stallion _and_ a mare.

The sim is on a 1-20 scale (with some decimal places). Using entirely made-up numbers to illustrate the point, your colt could have an 19 racing number and a 20 breeding number. So, he's a freak with a higher breeding number and gets the breeding shed comment. However, if every other horse in the first 3 generations of his pedigree has a "1" for their breeding number, then he doesn't look so shiny and ends up with a lower hypo.

You made a decision based on a label for one hidden number, and now you have more information on a weighted average of several hidden numbers.

[Lily Wilkins]

Don't worry, Eric you're not the only one confused by this. This happens pretty much every season.

The "breeding shed" gallop label and "hypos" are based on different hidden information on our horses.

"Breeding shed" (or Longer Career) comments are similar to the BSA label (blue hen/star/etc.) for mares, or gallops (freak/stakes/etc.) on racers. They look at single numbers and let us know whether the racing number is larger/smaller than the breeding number. You (hopefully) wouldn't retire a colt early for breeding just because he said "freak". It's the same with the BS/LC labels - it's not enough to decide when to retire your horse.

Hypos (which are a better standard of breeding quality than gallop labels) are based on comparing a stallion and mare's 3-generation pedigree and doing some mysterious stuff to give us a letter grade. To be clear -> every hypo is based on a stallion _and_ a mare.

The sim is on a 1-20 scale (with some decimal places). Using entirely made-up numbers to illustrate the point, your colt could have an 19 racing number and a 20 breeding number. So, he's a freak with a higher breeding number and gets the breeding shed comment. However, if every other horse in the first 3 generations of his pedigree has a "1" for their breeding number, then he doesn't look so shiny and ends up with a lower hypo.

You made a decision based on a label for one hidden number, and now you have more information on a weighted average of several hidden numbers.

This is the most eloquent explanation I've seen.

[Andrew Chillin]

Burn the comments, burn gallop comments, and let there be freedom

[Gavin Guile]

You are not alone in misjudging the breeding shed comment and how it compares to gallop. I posted the same thing four months ago, viewtopic.php?t=57763

I think the conclusion was the two scales are not related in terms of how the horses are populated regarding the standard deviation of the mean.

Also glad people choose to be nice to you instead of what i received (wonder why the same question was meant with different levels of kindness - thanks Gwen)

[Ronnie Dee]

The Steward said in the context of a similar complaint:

Also if it helps, his racing number was nowhere near that high. We still have a long way to go to hit that kind of number!

My interpretation:
If you look at the curve of the current distribution of breeding numbers and the current distribution of racing numbers, the former is to the right (greater) of the latter. Keep in mind The Steward said "long way" so the breeding numbers curve is noticeably to the right (greater) of the racing numbers curve.

[Emkay Stables]

The "breeding shed" gallop label and "hypos" are based on different hidden information on our horses.

"Breeding shed" (or Longer Career) comments are similar to the BSA label (blue hen/star/etc.) for mares, or gallops (freak/stakes/etc.) on racers. They look at single numbers and let us know whether the racing number is larger/smaller than the breeding number. You (hopefully) wouldn't retire a colt early for breeding just because he said "freak". It's the same with the BS/LC labels - it's not enough to decide when to retire your horse.

Hypos (which are a better standard of breeding quality than gallop labels) are based on comparing a stallion and mare's 3-generation pedigree and doing some mysterious stuff to give us a letter grade. To be clear -> every hypo is based on a stallion _and_ a mare.

The sim is on a 1-20 scale (with some decimal places). Using entirely made-up numbers to illustrate the point, your colt could have an 19 racing number and a 20 breeding number. So, he's a freak with a higher breeding number and gets the breeding shed comment. However, if every other horse in the first 3 generations of his pedigree has a "1" for their breeding number, then he doesn't look so shiny and ends up with a lower hypo.

You made a decision based on a label for one hidden number, and now you have more information on a weighted average of several hidden numbers.

Really appreciate this explanation, Gwen -- really paints the picture of what each rating considers

[John Smith]

If you will notice, i lodged a whine about equipment and similar time this complaint. If i remember the career post correctly, in”off topic,” that would be two teachers finding something irritating in synchrony with grade reporting coming due.

“Is there any extra credit?!”