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SIM Mentorship: How It Can Benefit New Players
Original article written by Frances Krell posted 12 years 3 weeks agoI’ve had quite a bit of history with the SIM. I originally joined on March 21, 2010, but being as stubborn as I am there have been multiple times where I became exceedingly frustrated and left the site. The entire time this was happening, I refused to ask for help. I felt that more experienced players had figured it out on their own (which I have since learned is NOT the case), and I wanted to try and figure it out on my own as well. This did not work well at all, hence why I left the SIM so many times.
However, I kept coming back. I love racing, and thought the SIM was a really special website. I couldn’t, however, get past the fact that I was really, really bad at figuring horses out. I didn’t even know where to start in most cases!
A few weeks ago I was perusing the SIM forum and found a “Help For New Players” forum post titled “Mentoring.” It had been started by Carolyn Eaton, asking if more experienced players would be willing to be paired up with a newer player, in hopes that newer players would have a someone specific to go to for questions, tips and tricks, nudges in the right direction, and so on. I took a deep breath and decided I needed to quit being so stubborn, and asked to be placed with a mentor (even though I’d recently been classified as a junior player).
I was paired with the fantastic Madelene Gilbert, who immediately messaged me and asked me to lay out my short-term and long-term goals with the SIM. Since right now I just want a small stable with consistent runners, Maddy walked me through the process of looking through the sales page, looking back through pedigrees, checking out a horse’s previous races, and using all of this to buy a horse. It was great because Maddy didn’t just give me the answers; she nudged me in the right direction, but let me figure out things for myself. I really feel like I got a lot more out of her mentoring because of that.
After just a week of mentoring and over a year of on-and-off quitting and rejoining, on November 15, 2011 I had my very first win in a race! I can’t tell you how amazing it felt to not only win a race (and some purse money), but also how much fun it was to feel like I was officially part of the SIM community. I continue to have a very simple stable of geldings and will probably maintain said stable for the time being, but I feel so much more confident in my ability to buy consistent runners, place them in the correct races, and watch them succeed.
It’s been said before in the forums and in countless interviews with some of the most successful players in the SIM: when in doubt, ASK FOR HELP. The forum is always a good place to go, but with mentoring you are paired with someone else who, in my case, really invested time and helped me figure out what I wanted out of the SIM and helped me begin to achieve that. Maybe it’s only been one win so far, but it definitely fueled the desire for me to stay and succeed!
To all new players: Ask questions. Be willing to learn. Don’t join the SIM or ask for a mentor and expect to be spoon fed answers. So if you’re willing to work hard and put in some serious time and effort, go check out the mentoring thread in the New Players forum and take advantage of the awesome experienced players who have offered their time to help other players succeed.
I want to give a very special thanks to Carolyn Eaton for starting the mentoring thread, the more experienced players for volunteering their time and sharing their knowledge of the game, and to my awesome mentor Maddy Gilbert for listening to even my most ridiculous questions! I truly appreciate your help.