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Overview of Equipment
Original article written by Regina Moore posted 4 years 2 weeks agoEquipment is an important factor for racing success, but not the most important thing in a race. A superior horse can win a race with incorrect equipment. But most races are competitive enough that correct equipment is necessary in order to win.
Horses are born with a need for up to two pieces of equipment to run at their best, and therefore you can’t equip a horse with more than two pieces at a time. It’s up to the players to find out which pieces each horse runs best with. Wearing more pieces than the horse requires is detrimental to its performance, as is having one or both pieces incorrect. By my estimation, about 75-80% of SIM horses need two pieces to run at their best, 15-20% need only one piece, and less than 5% don’t need any equipment at all.
THE EQUIPMENT PIECES
Equipment can be broken down into two subsets — training/behavioral pieces and vet (health related) pieces. These subsets only matter when one is talking about a two-piece horse and when one is using certain tools to find equipment. More on this later.
Thoroughbreds — the available training pieces are blinkers, ear muffs, figure-8, no whip (jockey not carrying a whip), shadow roll, and Sure Win bit. The available vet pieces are front bandages, hind bandages, Lasix, and tongue tie. That’s ten possible pieces.
Mixers (Appys, Arabs, QH, Paints) — the same as for Thoroughbreds, but instead of a Sure Win bit, there’s a ring bit. So, that’s also ten pieces total.
Harness (trotters and pacers) — the available training pieces are blind bridle, head pole, martingale, and shadow roll. The available vet pieces are boots and tongue tie. So, that’s six possible pieces.
To understand what the various equipment pieces do, please see the FAQ: http://www.simhorseracing.com/simforum/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=10967
DEFINITIONS
First Piece — Players refer usually refer to the “first piece” as one found via an equipment check. The first piece might be the only piece needed.
Second Piece — Players usually refer to the “second piece” as the one that still needs to be found, after finding the first piece from an equipment check.
Gallop Piece — A training/behavioral piece that might randomly be revealed via galloping (or Teach Horse to Jump). Such a revelation will only happen with a two-piece horse, and would be what most players think of as the “second piece”, since it’s the piece that isn’t revealed by an equipment check.
Vet Piece — A health-related piece that might randomly be revealed via a vet check. Such a revelation will only happen with a two-piece horse, and would be what most players think of as the “second piece”, since it’s the piece that isn’t revealed by an equipment check.
TOOLS FOR FINDING EQUIPMENT
There’s a wide variety of ways in which players can try to find out their horse’s equipment. None of them is ideal, as that would be too easy. They all have pros and cons.
Equipment Check — An equipment check is located on the Train This Horse page, in the lower right box. The good news is that it’s the fastest way to get the most thorough information about equipment for a horse that hasn’t raced yet. The drawback is that it costs 500 game points to do so. Upon paying that fee, assistant trainer Mary Weather will give you an equipment piece the horse needs. If the horse just needs one piece, or is a rare horse that doesn’t need any equipment, she tells you such, and you’re done with finding equipment for that horse. In most cases, however, she will give one piece needed and indicate that a second piece still needs to be found. If she says, “I’ll have to observe this horse in training to try to figure it out” that means the second piece needed is a training/behavioral piece, and therefore might be randomly revealed by a gallop. If she says, “I can’t help you with that”, it means that the second piece needed is a vet piece, and might be randomly revealed by a vet check.
Galloping — Galloping a horse might randomly reveal an equipment piece. This would happen only if the horse is a two-piece horse, and the second piece needed is a training/behavioral piece. Galloping will never reveal an equipment piece for a one-piece horse, or a horse where the second piece needed is a vet piece.
Vet Check - Vetting a horse might randomly reveal an equipment piece. This would happen only if the horse is a two-piece horse, and the second piece needed is a health related piece. Vetting will never reveal an equipment piece for a one-piece horse, or a horse where the second piece needed is a training/behavioral piece. (Note: if the vet tells you that the horse needs “bandages”, you’ll have to use another method, such as timed workouts, to find out if its front bandages or hind bandages.)
Timed Workouts — Horses almost always work faster with correct equipment. So, one can use a series of workouts to find out which piece(s) the horse works fastest with. However, it’s extremely important that it’s an apples to apples comparison. The horse must work the same distance/surface every workout, and should be at a similar rest and fitness as the other workouts. If a horse is even slightly tired, it’ll effect its workout time. Likewise, in my experience, some horses seem to get more fit, so that they might naturally work faster from reaching peak fitness. Timed workouts are a good method for those that don’t want to spend game points finding equipment, but it also requires a lot of patience and discipline to stick to a routine, in order to get through all possible equipment pieces. (Plus, one should probably work the horse without any equipment, in case it’s a rare one that doesn’t require any.) I would only recommend using workouts for yearlings, as it’s too disruptive to a horse’s racing career to take a break from racing for many weeks to try to find correct equipment.
Running Lines — For a horse that’s already racing, its running lines might hint at equipment needed. However, this is a highly inexact science. A horse might go wide because its needs a figure-8 to give the jockey more control, or the horse might have simply been forced wide, and therefore going wide has nothing to do with equipment. (Prior to Year 30, running lines were the only way players had to find equipment for their horses!)
Ask the Jockey — After any race, you can ask the jockey about equipment (from the results chart), for free, and he’ll either tell you that you “chose the perfect equipment” for the horse, and so you no longer need to worry about finding equipment for that horse. However, if the jockey tells you that you didn’t have the correct equipment, he doesn’t give you any more information. If the horse has run at least six races, you’ll have a button to click, where you can pay $5,000 SIM dollars, and then be told all the pieces the horse needs. So, on one hand, this is an easy thing to do if you can afford the 5k, but on the other, you might have to wait to up to six races before you know for certain what the correct equipment is. (Note: if you just claimed/purchased a horse, you can’t Ask the Jockey for any of its prior races, because you weren’t the owner of the horse for those races.)
Guessing — Some impatient players (and generally those struggling for success) just throw equipment on their horses at random, and hope that it’s correct. Equipment needs are randomly assigned to SIM horses at birth, and do not equate to pedigree or real life. (In other words, just because most real life Quarter Horses race with blinkers and a shadow roll doesn’t have anything to do with whether your SIM Quarter Horse needs blinkers and a shadow roll. Just because mom raced with a tongue tie doesn’t mean that her offspring are likely to need tongue ties.) Since most horses need two pieces, and there’s ten possible pieces for all but Standardbreds, that means that there’s 90 possible combinations for a two-piece horse, so it’s extremely unlikely that mere trial-and-error is going to stumble upon the correct combination.
COMBINING TOOLS
Most players use a combination of methods to find equipment for all their horses. For example, I equipment check all my yearlings. Since horses can’t safely be given timed workouts before Week 5, I spend Weeks 1 thru 4 galloping or vetting those that need a second piece, based upon whether the equipment check indicated the second piece needed was a training piece or health piece. I gallop every 2 to 3 days, and usually give a week off before starting workouts, so the horses are rested from all that galloping. For vet pieces, I usually vet 5 times right away, hoping to get the needed vet piece revealed, and then will spend maybe another 5k the next few weeks for additional vetting. I don’t want to spend any more than that, however.
By Week 5, for horses where I still haven’t found the second piece from galloping or vetting, I then proceed to a series of weekly workouts. Since the first piece is already known from the equipment check, and I know from the equipment check if its a training or vet piece needed for the second piece, I just need to work the horse with the alternating second pieces that are indicated. For example, if I was told the first piece is a shadow roll, and the second piece a vet piece, then I would equip my horse with a shadow roll, and then work it with Lasix the first week, with front bandages the second week, with hind bandages the third week, and with a tongue tie the fourth week. If the fastest work was with Lasix, then I can feel pretty confident that a shadow roll and Lasix is the correct equipment combination. After the horse’s first race, I’ll Ask the Jockey to verify that this combination is indeed correct. The vast, vast majority of the time, it is.
Some players might do the above with their best horses, but not want to spend the game points for an equipment check for their lower quality horses. So, for the latter, they might give a series of eleven or more weekly workouts, one equipment piece per workout plus a workout without any pieces, and combining the fastest pieces to see if those together are faster that any prior one-piece works. When one uses only workouts to find equipment, there’s no reason to be concerned with defining a first or second piece, or gallop versus vet pieces. All pieces need to be tried.
Some players don’t have the patience to do weekly workouts, so after doing an equipment check, they might just continually gallop or vet their horses until the second piece is found. There have been players that have reported it taking literally 40+ different gallops, or 40+ different vet checks, before a piece of equipment is revealed. That’s a lot of galloping that can culminate in an exhausted horse, or a lot of vetting that can get very expensive.
EQUIPMENT INDICATORS
Players can indicate whether they have the equipment “set” (found) for a specific horse. These indicators are on the “Change Equipment” page, and located beneath the actual equipment pieces. One can choose an asterisk to show that all equipment has been found for that horse. Or they can chose “ne” to indicate that the horse doesn’t need any equipment, or they can choose “op” to show that the horse is a one-piece horse. These indicators can not only be seen in the barn grids of SIMperior players, but they can also be seen in race entries.
If one is buying/claiming horses based upon the equipment having an asterisk next to it, meaning all equipment pieces have been found, I’d be very careful about trusting it. Some inattentive players might think the correct equipment has been found for their horse, when it really hasn’t, and some might asterisk a horse they hope gets claimed from them, to make the horse appear more attractive. So, just as with all aspects of purchasing and claiming, buyer beware.
ADDITIONAL NOTES
Some players think that a two-piece horse needs a gallop piece as one piece, and a vet piece as a second piece. This is just plain not true. Both pieces needed might be gallop pieces, both pieces needed might be vet pieces, or there might be one of each.
Some players don’t understand that front bandages and hind bandages are two different pieces. It is possible for a two-piece horse to need front bandages as the first piece, and hind bandages as the second piece, and vice versa.
If an equipment check indicates that a horse needs front bandages as the first piece, and a vet piece as the second piece, and a later vet check says the horse needs “bandages”, then you know by default that the second piece needed is hind bandages. And vice versa.
Since Standardbreds only have two vet pieces (boots and tongue tie), if an equipment check tells you the horse needs a tongue tie, and the second piece is a vet piece, then you know by default that the second piece is boots. And vice versa.
When you acquire a youngster or a horse for racing, make certain that you peruse any comments on its History tab that are in italics. (Comments in italics are ones that only the horse’s owner can see.) It is utterly astounding how many players will race a horse in incorrect equipment when some, if not all, the equipment information needed is right there in the History. In other words, sometimes a gallop will reveal an equipment piece, and the owner apparently never noticed, so never equipped the horse with that piece.
I have never known the SIM to give wrong information on equipment. Mary Weather could say, “You might try a shadow roll”, and the word “might” sounds iffy, but trust that it’s a fact that your horse needs a shadow roll. It is amazing how many players will find the correct equipment for their horses and yet, when the horse keeps losing, they change the horse’s equipment. If the necessary equipment is in the horse’s History, and/or the jockey tells you that the equipment is correct, then the reason your horse keeps losing has nothing to do with equipment. Leave correct equipment alone!
Just because a horse won a race doesn’t in and of itself mean that the horse had correct equipment. As stated at the beginning, horses can win races with incorrect equipment.
“Teach Horse to Jump” is the steeplechase equivalent of galloping. So, a training/behavioral piece can be revealed by teaching a horse to jump, if the horse is a two-piece horse and the second piece needed is a gallop piece.