Understanding Timed Workouts - An Overview

Original article written by Regina Moore posted 9 years 1 week ago

I've mentored a lot of players, and one of the things I’m asked most frequently about is timed workouts. Unfortunately, I rarely feel I can give a straight answer to workout-related questions. There’s always a myriad of ifs, ands, or buts. Therefore, I wanted to write a series of articles to reference in the future, so I don’t have to keep repeating long-winded explanations.


A BIG CAVEAT
Frankly, I’m not the best player to be writing articles on workouts. While it’s always fun to see one’s horse ranked among the top times – and I’ve certainly had that experience -- I do not put an enormous amount of importance on workouts. I race all my own homebreds, and since I don’t cull youngsters, I don’t use workout times to eliminate lesser horses. Also, I play all breeds and distance types, which means my focus is divided between a lot of different types of horses, and therefore a lot of different workout distances and times.

So, bottom line, I’ve no doubt that players who focus on a specific breed/distance division are a whole lot smarter about timed workouts in their specific division(s) than I am. Therefore, I invite anyone who reads these articles to feel free to correct, expand on, or outright disagree with anything I say – whether with their own article, or on the Forum. If there’s enough chatter, I might do a follow-up article and quote comments from other players. The idea is to give players (especially newish players) information to make their own reasonable assessment of their horses, in terms of workout times.


BREAKING DOWN BY BREED
I’ve written three additional individual breed articles in this series– Thoroughbreds, Stock Breeds (Paint/Appy/Quarter Horses), and Arabians. Each breed group has its own set of nuances when it comes to timed workouts.

I decided not to do a separate article on Standardbred trotters and pacers, because there isn’t much to say. They only race at a mile, and the only available workout distance is at a mile. Really, the only thing a player needs to worry about with Standardbreds is that they’ve got the correct gait when comparing workout times and such with other horses. As with real life, pacers race and work roughly three seconds faster than trotters.


PRESUMABLY….
Like real life, most highly talented SIM horses are capable of fast workouts. But, also like real life, there are a fair amount of fast working horses that can’t reproduce that talent in an actual race, so they end up being ordinary, disappointing horses. And then there’s those odd horses that have pokey work times, but show considerably more ability in actual races.

So, while most players are naturally happy to see a top ranking time by their youngster, it does not automatically follow that such a horse is going to be a major contender in its division.

Likewise, I suspect that a whole bunch of decent horses get dumped into greener pastures, because their owners don’t understand how to decipher workouts for the horse’s particular division. So, if one gets good at figuring out workouts, they can probably find a whole bunch of discarded gems on the AJ list.

Also, one would expect a wings galloping horse to work faster than a hard to tell horse, and a wow horse to work faster than a wings, etc. This is true a lot of the time, but sometimes it isn’t.


OTHER REASONS TO DO WORKOUTS
Besides providing a temporary answer to the question, “How good is my youngster?” timed workouts also serve the purpose of giving experience, which is true of all the SIM’s training options.

All 2yo horses in SIM must have two timed workouts before they can race. Please know that yearlings have a high risk of injury if they’re given a timed workout before Week 5 of their yearling season.

For horses already racing, The Steward has always recommended that a horse get a timed workout if there has been at least five weeks since its last start.

Timed workouts can also be used to find proper equipment, with the fastest time corresponding to the equipment needed.


THE TROUBLE WITH WORKOUT TIMES
There are lots of reasons why you shouldn’t trust workout times to be the sole indicator of how good a horse is.

1. Per the FAQ on Training Your Horse, horses work faster with correct equipment. So, if a horse works slower than his gallop would suggest, then the horse might not have the equipment he needs, or have the wrong equipment, or maybe have just one piece of correct equipment, if he’s a two-piece horse. Only the owner of the horse is going to know whether he worked with correct equipment or not. Someone just clicking on the horse isn’t going to know such, though experienced players can often spot patterns in how equipment is being used in workouts, to determine whether or not the owner has found the correct equipment.

2. Tiredness affects workout times. The FAQ on Training Your Horse says “Exercising a horse before a workout, such as jogging or galloping, will impact a horse's workout time. If you want the best result from your workout, make sure the horse isn't a bit tired.” So, if someone gallops a horse the day before doing a timed workout, the horse is likely to work slower than he otherwise would. One can look at the horse’s History tab to see if any exercise was done with the horse within a few days of his workout, and therefore whether the workout time was likely compromised.

3. Though I can’t say that I know it to be an absolute fact, I’ve seen evidence that pedigree can influence workout times. By that, I mean that some bloodlines tend to throw faster working horses, and some bloodlines tend to throw slower working horses. I have certain bloodlines in my herd where I don’t expect youngsters to be very fast, though they later prove to be quite talented racehorses, and I have horses by certain stallions where, even though the youngster might work unusually fast for its gallop, I know that the horse probably really isn’t all that good, because most of that stallion’s offspring simply tend to work fast.


4. Similar to the above, another common belief in SIM, though I haven’t ever heard from official sources is an actual fact, is that a fast working youngster is likely to be at his best early in his career, while a slower working youngster is likely to take longer to develop. This makes sense, in light of some bloodlines tending to throw more precious offspring, while others throw later developing offspring. I have seen some evidence of this in my own experience, so I’ll try to get a fast-working youngster with a lesser gallop racing right away, so I can milk as much success from him as possible, before he “goes bad”.

If you want to know how likely it is that a top working horse turns out to be a top racehorse, just browse the workout rankings from past years to see how the best speedsters at various distances, surfaces, and breeds, turned out when it came to actual races.


THE TROUBLE WITH WORKOUT RANKINGS
As of a few game years ago, we finally got workout rankings, so with a few filter clicks, one can see the fastest 50 works for any breed, surface, and distance, for any given age and year. While this was way more information than we’d had previously (one used to have to scroll through all the workout results, day by day) it still isn’t ideal.

First, know that the rankings are the top 50 *times*, not the top 50 horses. So, if a speedy youngster is given a timed work ten times in a game year, he’ll knock nine other horses off the list. If the top five fastest horses are each given ten workouts in a game year, then they would use up all 50 slots, so there would only be five horses on the list of the top 50 times. Granted, the latter is a rather extreme example, but it does get annoying, as the year goes along, to see horses repeat their fastest times, which disallows other top 50 contenders from showing up.

Also, if you’re excited to see your horse among the fastest when workouts are safe for yearlings starting Week 5 of any game year, know that your excitement is likely to be short-lived. Lots of SIM players, including old-time SIM players who historically have the best horses, don’t necessarily work their youngsters right away. It could be weeks before a busy player gets around to it. So, you might click on the rankings one day, and find that your #1 ranked horse is now #15, or worse. In fact, it might have gotten kicked off the Top 50 list altogether.


OTHER TIMED WORK INFORMATION
Player Abe Froman has been really wonderful about compiling information on all yearling works, on occasion, so players can see percentage breakdowns for every breed and distance. The last time was for yearlings of Year 37. He’s generously put this information on the web, to share with others.

For Thoroughbreds, go to http://home.comcast.net/~buddha61/Y37%20TB%20Stats.pdf

For all other breeds, go to http://home.comcast.net/~buddha61/Y37%20Mixer%20Stats.pdf


SO, HOW GOOD IS MY YOUNGSTER?
I feel that it’s short-sighted to judge any youngster’s racing potential by its pedigree, or by its gallop, or by its workout time. Those three things all need to be considered together, to get the best possible picture of a youngster’s probable future.

Yet, even then, there can be plenty of surprises – for better or worse – when a horse actually starts racing. If players knew exactly what they had in a horse, before it ever races, then there wouldn’t be any point in running the races. So, it’s important to the enjoyment and realism of the game that indicators like gallops and timed workouts are sometimes not reliable.

It’s the actual races that are ultimately what matter most. And that’s as it should be.

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