A Close Look at a Wealthy Stable

Original article written by Regina Moore posted 9 years 4 weeks ago

As of this writing -- Week 12 of Year 40 -- I'm the 13th wealthiest player in SIM, with over 23 million in my SIM bank. (To see the top 50 wealthiest players, though some have their names hidden, go under the Racing heading of your home office page, then Rankings, then Owners. Under the title Top Hundred Ranked Owners is a link that says "Click for Rank by Money".)

It's a good guess that the hundreds of players who have less money than I do would love to have the 23 million that I have. It's also a high probability that some who have very little money feel that it's impossible to ever reach 20 million in cash, or perhaps even just one million. For those who might have just started SIM with a mere 100k and don't have much left, or those who have been paying a while and always seem to struggle with money, it's easy to feel that SIM is rigged so that the rich get richer, and the poor have no chance of getting out of poverty.

I'm a prime example that this is just plain not true. What's more, I've mentored quite a number of players who have gotten their financial feet well under them within their first two or three game years. I've highlighted some strategies in my article "How New Players Can Succeed Quickly". (http://www.simhorseracing.com/featurerace/article.php?ArticleID=12731)

With this article, I want to tell the story of my own stable, and how I built it to be one of the wealthiest stables in the game.


SOME SURPRISING FACTS
First, let me tell you some things about my stable that I think many players will be surprised to know.

1. You can do a Search with my name as owner, as see that I have quite a number of millionaire horses in my barn. But guess what? With one exception (turf miler War Lock), I didn't race any of those millionaire horses. On the contrary, in most cases, I spent many millions buying them after they had already been at stud a while. Those horses *cost* me money, and it's not automatic that I'm going to be able to recoup my costs from stud fee income. So, don't be thinking "no wonder you're rich, because you've raced a ton of seven-figure horses." I haven't. In 18 game years, I've only campaigned one.

2. You can look at my trophy case and see that I've won some 20 Steward's Cup races. No wonder I'm rich! But take a harder look at those. Only one of those trophies -- won by War Lock -- is for a Thoroughbred Steward's Cup race. I've been in SIM since Year 24, and I've only had one Thoroughbred win a Steward's Cup race, and I've been third a couple of times. That's it. All those other trophies are for mixer horses, and if you click on the actual races, you'll see that the Steward's Cup purses for mixers are considerably smaller than those for Thoroughbreds, especially a few years back. So, Steward's Cup wins is only a small portion of my wealth.

3. My win rate has hovered around 15%, and my OTB around 50%, for as long as I've been playing SIM, which are very modest numbers. I'm not a high percent player.

4. When I started SIM late in Year 23, newbie players started with 100k, and that was it. Now, new players get additional influxes of cash throughout their newbie year, so that starting money totals 250k. From that standpoint, I had a harder climb as a newbie than current newbies.

5. I sell very few horses. I never sale unraced youngsters, and almost never sell horses of racing age, except via the claiming box. Therefore, I have minuscule income from selling horses.

So, considering the above, just how the heck did I earn 115 million in purses during 18 game years, and be able to hang onto 23 million of it?


SMART THINGS I DID EARLY ON
A. I have a vivid memory of my first day in SIM. I looked at the list top 50 rankings of players by wealth (the only player ranking available at the time), and saw players with millions, including a few with 30 million or more. I could see how easy it would be to get discouraged, wondering how my 100k could ever be parlayed into a few million, let alone 20 or 30 million. So, I Made a Decision that I was going to accept the fact that building my stable to one of much success was going to be a slow process. I Decided that I was going to have fun doing it, and not demand that all the best things that were ever going to happen to my stable all happen right away. I wasn't going to get sour or cranky about how much money other players had, or the multiple great horses they owned. I was going to focus on MY stable, and not worry about what other players were doing or not doing with their stables.

B. I had a background in racing -- mostly as an intense fan, but also as an owner in a large partnership. I knew that the vast majority of horses lose far more races than they win. So, I knew not to stress over losing, even in situations when it seemed obvious that my entrant was the best horse. After all, when you have a race with 12 horses who are all at the top of their game, 11 are still going to lose.

C. When we got FAQs at the beginning of Year 24, I read them.

D. I paid attention to what was going on in the Forum, especially when The Steward commented. It became apparent, rather quickly, that some veteran players had beliefs about how to best play SIM that weren't really true.

E. I enjoy writing, and when I found out within my first few days that one could earn 20k per 500-word article, I started writing. I earned over a million dollars my first game year from writing articles.

F. Midway through my junior year, I spent $2 million to buy a farm. I had $2.8 million in the bank, and most any reasonable SIMsters would say that one shouldn't spend such a huge portion of their cash on such a money sieve as a farm. I don't disagree. But the fact was, I wanted a farm, as a home for all my youngsters and breeding stock, and to simply have a geographical sense of place in SIM. So, I didn't ask anyone else's opinion, since I already knew what I wanted. Having a farm made me happy (and has continued to make me happy). That's why it was a smart thing to do.

G. Breeding is fun. But it's also expensive, with needing to buy mares and pay stud fees. I built my breeding empire in gradual steps. My first six weeks was up just in time to breed some foals in Year 23. I bred four foals. The next year, I bred 28. The next year, I bred 40-something. And so on. Now, I breed close to 200 foals a year. The number of foals I bred increased along with my bank balance. In other words, I bred more mares, as I was able to afford it. A huge mistake a lot of newish players make is diving head first into breeding, without first establishing a reliable income stream.


BENEFICIAL THINGS I KEEP DOING
1. I focus on what I'm doing with my own stable. Other players' stables are there own business, except when I'm mentoring players, and invited to look over their shoulder. My time and energy in SIM is spent thinking about what needs to happen with MY stable.

2. I get the most out of each and every horse. I keep even my "claimer" gallopers and race them. The vast majority of my horses break their maiden by the time their 4yo season is over. If I can get just a small profit from a horse, then the horse is worthwhile. Those small profits add up. That's a big reason why I have 23 million in my bank, despite campaigning only one millionaire.

3. I look for niches -- places where my horses can win. While the Alaska dirt and turf races are often crowded with large fields, there's frequently races all over the globe with only a few entrants, and often a lot higher purse money than the Alaska races. Time and time again, I have checked the Unfilled races on the Search page, found races with hardly any horses entered, and shipped my horses to those tracks. I have often shipped a talent-challenged horse from my farm in Oklahoma on Saturday, and had it winning a 20k maiden special weight race two days later in Japan on Monday, over a small field. Likewise, there's a slew of AUS-bred turf races in Australia that rarely have more than three horses.

It's shocking to me how few players will look for easy spots for their horses. They'll just keep racing them in Alaska against large fields, and then get depressed that they lose so much. Right now, I've got a 2yo Thoroughbred dirt sprinter that's a worthless "claimer" galloper, that can't run a speed figure faster than 62; yet, he has run five times, with a win, a second, a third, and a fourth, and earned 18.5k. His one poor race? A seventh place finish in Alaska. His winning race was in Japan. His other races have been in Kentucky, Florida, and Kansas. Only one of those latter races had as many as four horses. An irony to this is that I keep forgetting to geld him, so he's accomplished more than any "claimer" galloper should while still being a colt. Purse money is easy to come by when one races in small fields.

Recently, there's been a huge influx of of sponsored races (including stakes) for horses by Game Point stallions. I happen to have a lot of GP-sired horses. I've had quite a few horses rack up earnings, running third or fourth in those races. Occasionally, they can be second or even win. That's what I mean about looking for niches. When you have your eyes open for easy spots -- and the fastest way to find them is checking the Unfilled box on the Search page -- then you can take advantage of easy purse money, even if your horses aren't very good.

4. I don't keep running horses that are doing badly. If I have a horse that's off the board three races in a row, and he's already running lower level races, I either retire him, or stop racing him for a while and just use him if a race with a small fields happens to come along. If he's been running higher level races, then I drop him in class. What's the point of racing a horse that keeps finishing poorly? There's nothing good that can come from that. It's major depressing. It's been said that, "A definition of insanity is repeating the same behavior, and expecting a different result." Yet, I see time and time again, players who will keep running a horse that hasn't earned a single dollar in its last seven or eight races. What do they expect to change?

5. This won't be a popular notion (and I think even The Steward would disagree with it), but I have rarely paid for expensive stud fees. Even with the help of nicks and mare quality, I feel that breeding is, ultimately, a crapshoot. We breeders have no control over the random slide that the computer applies to any foal. So, why spend 100k for a stallion, when you can pay 15k for a different stallion? Granted, it's all a little more complicated than that, but I feel that paying modest stud fees for so many years, rather than expensive stud fees, is a huge reason that I'm a wealthy player. (Though it might also be a reason that I've only ever raced one millionaire, lol.) Also, in recent years I've used Game Point stallions quite a bit. Not only does it diversify the bloodlines in my herd, but it also keeps me from spending SIM dollars to breed those same mares.

6. One of many aspects of my stable that I've built very gradually is the stallion roster. Now, I have some 30 stallions at stud, at any given time, representing all breeds and types. A few are top of the line stallions in high demand, while most have modest demand. A few are downright deadbeats, but if someone wants to keep breeding to them, I tend to keep them on the roster, since it doesn't cost me anything to do so. A large stallion roster not only provides stud fee income, but since I mostly breed to my own stallions (plus Game Point stallions), then breeding season costs me very little in stud fees. So, I have lots of stud fee money coming in, but little going out. Last year, I had ten million in purse earnings. I made nine million in stud fee income. Some of these stallions have cost me millions to purchase, and it's not automatic that they'll pay for themselves. But even in such cases, I get to breed to them for free, so they at least save me stud fees.

7. I've been population-conscious since day one. I breed the mares I want to breed. I don't treat every open womb as something that must be filled. I own lots of mares that just plain don't get bred any given game year, though I might want to later, especially when I retire a new stallion that I want to give a variety of opportunity. Lots of players complain about being over-whelmed with too many horses, and too many horses starts with too many mares having not-eagerly-wanted foals. When you're heads-up about what you're breeding or buying, then an unmanageable population isn't a problem.

8. I send my horses to a nearby farm immediately after every race. That is, hands down, the best thing you can do for your horse's well-being. When you have a farm-rested horse, you can do risky things, such as running on a one-week turnaround if there's some easy purse money available. You can accidentally give your horse a workout a few days after a race, and it's unlikely to be injured (though the work time is sure to be poor). You can ship a long distance just a couple of days before race day, and not have it be too tired to run well. As far as healthy, happy racehorses go, farm rest is The Key to Everything.


All the above is simply the realities of my wealthy stable. It definitely wasn't all about landing one particularly good horse. I've seen lots of players get that One Great Horse, and be completely broke a few game years later. My wealth in SIM was about gradually building a solid foundation, rather than getting the great horse.

Still, there's no doubt that a lot of other wealthy stables have approached things completely different from me, and still amassed a fortune. So, there's all sorts of ways one can go about it.

One way I know that *won't* achieve wealth is feeling sour about all the players who have considerably more money than you, or otherwise spending your time in SIM muttering to yourself about how everything in the game is rigged so that the rich get richer, and the poor stay poor.

I started with 100k. Just like you.

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