Getting Rich in SIM - Race Placement

Original article written by Regina Moore posted 12 years 3 weeks ago

In the prior part on purchasing horses, I said the average everyday Thoroughbred racehorse ought to be able to earn 12k per year. You might be puzzled and thinking, “But most of my horses are average, and they aren’t earning 12k a game year.” Then I say your horses are actually below average and you need to get rid of them, or else you aren’t managing your stable as well as you could be. In the latter case, let’s talk about the most important thing for the active racehorse – race placement.

Race placement refers to the decision to enter your horse in this race, instead of that race. If you’re haphazardly throwing your horses into any race just because – ie, you don’t have any particular reason for choosing one race over another – then you’re not pro-actively managing your horses, and you’re unlikely to ever get very wealthy in SIM.

If you’re serious about making money in SIM, then you need to get serious about choosing to enter your horse in *this* race instead of *that* race, because it makes more sense to do so, and the horse is either A) most likely to win the chosen race than any other race, and/or B) the horse is most likely to earn more money in the chosen race than in any other race.

Here are factors to think about when choosing the best possible race. (This article assumes that you already know to enter turf miler horses in turf mile races, dirt sprinters in dirt sprint races, etc.)


TIME BETWEEN RACES
The FAQs specifically state that “most horses” can race seven times a year. Divide seven by a 16-week game year, and that works out to roughly every two weeks, with a couple of three-week spacings during the year. Used to be, the rule was that horses could only race six times a year (the difference is that amenities at farms, introduced in Year 24, allows horses to rest faster). Some veteran players still quote the old advice of three weeks between races and four weeks for 2yos.

I say race every two weeks most of the year, unless you have a horse whose best races seem to be with three-week spacings.

The two-week spacing is crucial when it comes to earning more money. If you have a horse that picks up purse money most of the time, then it’s going to earn more purse money racing seven times a year, than it will racing six times. Multiply that by 100 horses, and that’s a lot of extra purse money.

I actually have not had any problem with occasionally racing a horse, say, Monday of Week 8, and then Friday of Week 9; ie, 12 days apart. I just wouldn’t do that more than once a game year with the same horse, but sometimes it’s necessary to take advantage of an ideal race.

If you can’t find a race that your horse is likely to do well in two weeks from now, then there’s no harm done waiting until the following week to see if there’s a better race. In fact, even with the intent to race very two weeks most of the time, many horses end up getting three-week breaks rather frequently, simply because there’s not always an appropriate race two weeks out.

If you *have* been racing a horse every two weeks, race after race, then I’d give it a deliberate three week break every four or five races. Also, if a consistent horse suddenly throws in a bad performance, the horse might be telling you that he needs an extra week of rest.

If circumstances are such that your horse goes as long as five weeks between races, you should give it a workout sometime during that space to keep it fit. (Not that it’s impossible to win after a long break without a work; it’s just that The Steward has always recommended a workout for a five-week break between races to maintain fitness.)


FIELD SIZE
I’ve written quite a number of articles that focus primarily on field size. Let’s just say that field size can be extremely important for this reason: Purse money always goes back to fifth place. The fewer horses there are in the race, the fewer horses you have to beat to win some money. It’s that simple. So, all other factors being equal, a smaller field is going to be more profitable than a larger field.

What you have to be careful about with field size is that a lot more horses can enter a race between the time you ship your horse to the track, and when entries close. If you’re going to stress field size as a strategy (and I highly recommend it), you need to frequently check back with the races your horses are entered in and make sure the fields are still as small as you expected them to be. If a race goes from two horses to six horses, you might want to consider moving your horses to a different race.


SHIPPING DISTANCE
Shipping tires a horse, but we players don’t know how much distance tires a horse to what degree.

If you have a barn full of claimers, there’s rarely a reason for your horses to leave the western half of North America. That region contains the four Alaska tracks (all claimers), Trial Park (new players), Junior High (junior players), Price is Right (claimers), Dashing Downs (sprints), Middleground Park (mile races and short routes), and Marathon Downs (routes). All those tracks can pretty much meet any Thoroughbred claimer’s needs. I wouldn’t worry about tiredness while shipping back and forth between them and farms in the area. Yes, Alaska is a little bit farther, but I don’t feel it’s far enough away from the other tracks to make one hesitant to ship there.

If you are able to keep you horse in one area of the globe, and pretty much keep shipping short enough that it only costs the minimum of $100 (or thereabouts), your horse will be the better for it over the long term.

However, having said that, I’m a big, big believer in shipping a long distance if that’s what’s necessary for an ideal race. If my horse is in England, and there’s not a winnable race there, and there’s a 100k stakes in India with three horses entered, then I’ll often ship to India to pick up at least fourth place money ($7000).

I’ve had two instances in the past where I’ve shipped horses the long distance from South Dakota to Saudi Arabia, and in both cases the Saudi Arabian race was the horse’s fourth race in a row on a two-week turnaround. Both horses won. One was just a NW3 with four entries, another was a 100k stakes with a field of nine. In the latter case, my horse won with his lifetime best speed figure of 80. Examples such as these are reasons why I don’t hesitate to ship a long distance if the race appears to be ideal for my horse.

Put another way: you’ll earn more money in the short run if you aren’t a wuss about an occasional long ship, assuming you’re picking a good spot for your horse. Still, you’ll have a more productive horse in the long run if you can find ideal races for him in one region of the world, race after race, and never have to ship far.

If you ship a horse a long distance to a race and the horse doesn’t at least get fifth, then the shipping costs can start adding up, because it costs over $1000 to ship to opposite sides of the globe.

Many game years ago, there was a survey done of players, and the vast majority said they ship four days ahead of race day, some saying they’ll ship five or six days out if it’s a particularly long distance (such as from one continent to another). That’s the schedule I use and it works for me.


CLASS OF RACE
When all other factors are equal, it’s best to start a horse out in maiden races. If the horse can’t do well in maiden special weight, then drop it down into a maiden claimer. Once the horse wins, the next logical race it in a NW2 (non-winners of two). Once the horse wins a NW2, then go to a NW3. Don’t take a horse with one win and race it in an open claimer where it has to face tough older horses with many wins to their credit. If you want to earn as much money as quickly as possible, put your horses in the easiest race possible. That means against horses with an equal number of wins. (Of course, if your horse needs a NW2 and one isn’t available, you’ll need to enter a NW3, or perhaps wait another week.)

Tip: Early in the season, you can often race your maiden 2yo in NW2 races with small fields. If a 2yo breaks its maiden first out, then the owner is usually going to put it in a stakes race. Therefore, 2yo NW2 races early in the season rarely have winners in them. They very often have small fields of maidens – and the reason the fields are small is because most owners of maidens don’t think to consider a NW2 race as a reasonable possibility.

With claiming races, I wouldn’t get too hung up on, say, a 25k field having much difference from a 32k field. But I would say there’s quite a bit of difference between a 25k field and 60k field.

Stakes races are where the big money is. If you can earn more money finishing fourth in, say, a 200k stakes ($14,000) than winning a claimer with a 15k purse ($7500) then, most of the time, I say go for the 14k in the stakes. If we’re talking about a decent horse with a future, then I’ll probably choose to win a race, rather than hurt its confidence by running it in a stakes it has no chance of winning. But if you’re eager to build up your bank balance, you probably don’t have horses good enough to worry about hurting their confidence.

Don’t forget that stakes races have an entry fee equal to 1% of the purse. That can get expensive if your horse finishes sixth or worse and doesn’t earn any money, especially if the poor finish is combined with the cost of a long ship.


AGE AND SEX
When all other factors are equal, it’s always better to race a 3yo in a race for 3yos only, rather than against older horses; and better to race a filly against other fillies than against males.


TRACK CONDITION
I doubt track condition gives much of an edge, but it can give enough of an edge to prompt me to choose one race over another. I won’t ship from South Dakota to South Africa to race on a muddy track that my horse prefers but, all other factors being equal, I will ship from South Dakota to Florida if the latter is the only place I can find a muddy track. (If you’re wondering how you know what track condition your horse likes, you need to be a SIMprior player so you can ask the Horse Whisperer.)


THE COMPETITON
I’ve tried to avoid talking about the competition for a race, because it’s so fleeting and you have no control over it. The other horses in the race can change quite a bit from the time you first enter until the race is actually run. What’s more, a race can split, and you have no control over which half you end up in. (Though you can scratch from the split portion you’re in, and enter the other portion, if you feel it’s a softer spot.)

If you’re afraid to enter a race because you see a horse or two with a lot higher earnings than your horse, bear in mind that the bulk of those earnings might have been won early in that horse’s career, and if he’s six or seven now, he might not be doing all that well of late.

In short, I haven’t found it to be very beneficial to fret over the strength of the competition (though there can be exceptions for higher quality horses and races). The conditions of the race (NW2, NW3, etc.), and the claiming price can go a long way in trying to insure evenly-matched competition.


It’s a good thing to keep the above factors in mind when trying to choose the race where your horse is likely to earn the most money (which often means winning the race, but not always) for his next start. The more heads-up you are about these factors, the better you’ll be at placing your horses in races.

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