Your Friend, The Search Page - Horses

Original article written by Regina Moore posted 8 years 3 weeks ago

Players, your best friend in SIM might very well be the Search page. It can give you an amazing amount of information, once you become familiar with the filters.

This article will talk about the left side of the Search page, which is for finding horses.


LINK, PLEASE
If another player mentions a SIM horse's name, you don't need the link to find the horse. Just fill in the "Horse's Name" field at the top of the left side of the Search page, click the "Horse Search" button at the bottom, and the horse will appear, unless you spelled it wrong.

I have over 500 horses in my racing barn (plus nearly 200 in my alternate racing barn). Anymore, if I want to look at one of my own horses, and don't already have my racing barn open, I usually find it easier to go to the Search page to find the horse, rather than doing a bunch of clicks to open my racing barn, filter the breed to shorten the list to one page, and find the horse from there.

You can also find horses by inputting just part of their name in the horse name field. For example, I own a steeplechaser named Boo Boos. If I just type Boo in the name field, I'll get a result of all 40+ horses with names that start with Boo. I can choose Boo Boos from there.


WHO OWNS WHAT?
Want to be nosy about the horses owned by another player? Just type that player's name (spelled correctly) in the "Owner" field. If you put Regina Moore in that field, you'll see all the horses (listed alphabetically by name) owned by me. The resulting list goes on for a few pages, since I own over 2000 horses. If you just put "Regina" in the Owner field, you'll get an even longer list, since you'll get all the horses owned by both me and player Regina Hagert.


COMBINING FIELDS
So, continuing with the above example, let's say you're curious about all the horses I own. You put Regina Moore in the Owner field, and you get a list of more than 2000 horses. Those horses range from 20yo+ pensioners to yearlings. So, you decide you just want to see what stakes winners I own.

With my name in the Owner field, go down near the bottom of the left column, and you'll see a line with "All" "Maidens", "Winners", and "Stakes Winners". Choose "Stakes Winners". You now get a list (as of this writing) with 301 horses From this list, you can sort by breed, etc. So, say you sort by earnings to see who my most successful horses were. You see War Lock on top and click on him and note that I bred him. You click on the second horse, Court of Miracles, and see that The Steward bred him. If you look at his history tab, you see that another player bought and raced him, and I only purchased him after he was retired. So, now maybe you're curious about, of all my stakes winners, how many were bred by me.

Go back to the Search page. In addition to my name in the "Owner" field, now put Regina Moore in the "Breeder" field. Make sure the "Stakes Winners" button is still selected toward the bottom, and click "Horse Search" at the very bottom. You now have a shorter list of 206 stakes winners that I both own and bred.

Now, say you decide what you really want to know is how many stakes winners I'm the owner/breeder of that are currently racing. Toward the bottom, beneath the "State Located" field, you'll see those various rows that indicate a horse's status. From the first row, select "Not Retired". In the fourth row, you should already have "Stakes Winners" selected. When you click the "Horse Search" button, you get a much shorter list of 57 horses. These are stakes winners both owned and bred by Regina Moore that are still actively racing.

Let's go further. If you only care about Thoroughbreds, now select "Thoroughbred" in the breed field, about a third of the way down the column on the left. As of this writing, I have 17 Thoroughbred stakes winners that are homebreds, and which are still actively racing. If you click on the top two alphabetically, you'll see that they're steeplchasers. You only want to see the flat runners. Go back to the Search page. Above the "Breed" field is a line where you can choose "flat" or "steeplechaser". Choose the former. Now, the list is down to 14 horses.

So, as you can see from this example, we started out looking at a player's barn with over 2000 horses. By using the various filters, we narrowed it down to specifically see which Thoroughbreds on the the flat are currently active stakes winners, both owned and bred by that player. One could narrow the search even further, by using the other available fields, such as the horses' age (use 0 for foals), sire, etc.


PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS - EXAMPLE #1
Right now, the mixed breeds have a lot of small fields because the new Saturday racing has spread out the pool of available racehorses over a lot more races. Since some races have just one entry, or even none at all, I sometimes go looking on the sales page for horses to buy for a reasonable price, and put in those races for easy, immediate purse money. One of the biggest frustrations is when I'm searching for fillies on the sales page. Often, when I click on a 4yo filly (and sometimes even younger), I find that she's already retired. That's where the Search page come in.

Let's say that I see a race this upcoming Saturday with no entries. It's for 4yo+ Paint fillies that are maidens. I go to the Search page and fill in the following:
Gender = Female
Age = 4
Breed = Paint

For the Sales/Lease Price box, I choose "greater than or equals" and put 1.00. Since 1.00 is the lowest price a horse can sell for, the Search will give me all horses that currently have a sale price.

Toward the bottom, I choose "Not Retired". I then choose "Maidens" from the line that also includes winners and stakes winners.

Now, when I click the "Horse Search" button, I get a list of all 4yo maiden Paint fillies that can be raced, since they haven't yet been retired. I can run my cursor down the dollar signs the right, to see if I find any for an acceptable price. If not, I can go back to the Search page and put "5" for the age, and see if there might be a 5yo maiden Paint mare available. that isn't yet retired.

In addition to using the Search page to select for specific criteria concerning horses for sale by other players, know that the Search page (unlike the For Sale page) will also show horses owned by Alexandra Jaysman, the computer.


PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS - EXAMPLE #2
Like the idea of having some broodmares that are Steward-breds? If any are for sale, they're pretty easy to find with the Search page.

For gender, select "Female".
For breeder, put "The Steward".
For the Sales/Lease box, put "greater than or equals" and 1.00

Toward the bottom, select "Not Pensioned", since it's possible that there might be some Steward-bred mares currently owned by Alexandra Jaysman, that are available for $1.00, because they're pensioned and can no longer be used for breeding. You don't want these in your search results.

When you click on "Horse Search", you'll see all the active broodmares for sale that are Steward-breds, and you can scroll through the prices to see if you can afford any of them.

NOTE: At the time I did this search, the results had four mares, but none had a dollar sign. They were all owned by Alexandra Jaysman and I assume on the Newbie Sales List, which, of course, I'm not eligible to purchase from.

Also, note that there's no reason to select "Thoroughbred" for the breed, in this example, since The Steward only breeds Thoroughbreds.


PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS - EXAMPLE #3
Let's say that you've noticed that there's a lot of 2yo races in Australia that are only for AUS-bred horses, and which tend to have small fields.

Unfortunately, you don't have any AUS-bred 2yos. Since this is being written Week 12, and there's only four weeks left in the year, you decide it would be prudent to buy a few AUS-bred yearlings, to run in those AUS-bred 2yo races next season. Let's use the Search page to easily find available yearlings for sale.

In the Age box, put 1.
In the Breed box, put "Thoroughbred". (Since Australia also has a Standardbred Pacer track, you don't want those to come up in your search.)
In the Sales/Lease box, put "greater than or equals" and 1.00.
About two-thirds down the left side of the page, there is a field titled "State Bred". Use the down arrow to find "AUS".

Click the "Horse Search" button. You now have a list of all AUS-bred Thoroughbred yearlings that are available for sale. You can scroll down the dollar signs to see if any can be had for an acceptable price.


PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS - EXAMPLE #4
In light of Example #3, you decide that it makes a whole lot more sense to breed your own AUS-bred horses, rather than buying them from other players. In order to do so, you need to breed your mares to stallions standing in Australia. You can use the Stud Book to do this, but if you're not a SIMperior player, or want to see all the AUS stallions on one page (as opposed to those that are just turf sprinters, etc.), you need to use the Search page.

In the Breed box, choose "Thoroughbred".
In the "Stud Fee" box choose "greater than or equals to" and put 1.00. This will bring up all the stallions that are at stud -- ie, have a stud fee of 1.00 or more.

Go down to "State Located" and choose "AUS". (Make sure you don't choose "State Bred", as that would be where the stallion himself was bred. We want where he's currently located, for this situation.)

Click the "Horse Search" button. You get a list of all Thoroughbred stallions currently standing stud in Australia. What's more, because you used the "Stud Fee" field, the computer conveniently includes a column at the far right with the stud fee for each horse.


PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS - EXAMPLE #5
You just retired a mare by War Daddy. Who would be a good choice to breed her to? One common way players go about researching the answer to that question is to use the Search page.

A little more than halfway down, is a field titled "Dam Sire". Type in the name War Daddy.
Toward the bottom, choose "Stakes Winners".

Click the "Horse Search" button. You now see all the stakes winners with War Daddy as the dam sire. Click the "Sire" column to sort it. As of this writing, Just Victory has sired the majority of the stakes winners out of War Daddy mares. Just Victory has been pensioned, so maybe you would like to look for a son of Just Victory to breed to.


PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS - EXAMPLE #6
When players post to the forum a link to all the horses they have for sale, they often make this common mistake: the link they provide is to their own "Horses for Sale by Me" page (located in the My Stuff section of one's home page). Therefore, any player who clicks on that link is taken to *their own* horses for sale list, rather than to the selling player's horses for sale.

So, if I've put up some horses for sale, and want to provide a link to them, I need to use the Search page.

In the "Owner" field, I'd put Regina Moore.
I'd then go down to the Sales/Lease box, and put "greater than or equals to" and then 1.00

When I click the "Horse Search" button at the bottom, I get a list of all horses owned by Regina Moore that are for sale. I then need to use *that* link to paste into a forum post about horses that I have for sale.


POSSIBLE PROBLEMS
You can sometimes come up with a search result that has no horses, even though you know there are horses that exist which meet the filter criteria.

If you search by entering a horse's name, make sure it is spelled exactly the way the name actually is, with any apostrophes, spaces, etc.

Likewise, if you've used a player's name for the owner and/or breeder fields, make sure it is spelled exactly correct. Once, I put in my name as owner, and the search didn't bring up any horses. After puzzling over it for a moment, I then realized that I'd put an extra space between my first and last names. The SIM computer knew of no owner named Regina Moore.

Also, (ill)logistics can get your search into trouble. If, toward the bottom of the left column, I click "Winners" on one line, and "Unraced" on another line, the Search will come up with no horses. Obviously, if a horse has won a race, then he's a raced horse. A horse can't be both unraced and a winner.


I hope you can see, from these examples, how incredibly useful the Search page can be, and the above only scratches the surface.

Now, in Part 2, we'll discuss how to use the Search page to find races.

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