When to Retire a Horse

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

As a veteran player who likes to be helpful, I get asked these types of question a lot from other players. “Should I retire my stakes colt to stud at the end of this year, or keep racing another year?” “Should I go ahead and retire this filly that I want to breed?” “Should I pension this consistent gelding who isn’t doing so well lately, or drop him in cheap and hope someone claims him?” “Should I send all my horses that haven’t yet broken their maiden to Greener Pastures? Or should I keep racing them next year?”

The above are among my least favorite questions to answer. The reason is that there isn’t any One Right Answer for any particular player, or any particular horse. Deciding to retire, or to otherwise stop racing a horse, is a personal decision and really shouldn’t be anyone else’s business. It’s a situation of each individual player deciding what is most important to them.

However, because I do get asked these types of questions so often, I’m laying out what I think players should consider, if they’re having a hard time deciding when to retire, or otherwise quit with a horse.

ONE BAD RACE
Hopefully, any players reading this already know that SIM horses are preprogrammed to “go bad” at some point. They suddenly don’t perform well, or seem to gradually lose their form. Sometimes, a lower gallop comment reflects their lesser ability, sometimes not. The time when a horse is going to “go bad” varies from horse to horse, but can be influenced by pedigree. Turf horses usually last longer that dirt horses. Sprinters usually have a shorter racing life that routers. But these statements are generalizations. You can always find exceptions.

The one thing I feel strongly about is that a horse should NEVER be retired based solely upon one poor performance. Just as with real life, any horse can turn in a puzzling bad race for which the player can’t find any explanation for. In the vast majority of these cases, based upon my 32 game years or so of playing SIM, the horse will return to its prior brilliance the next race. It’s when the horse has two unusually poor performances in a row that I start thinking that it might be “done” as a racehorse. Then, I might retire at that point, or I might run one more race just to be sure.

Also, if a horse turns in an unusually bad race at the beginning of a new game year, at the beginning of the second half of a game year (Week 9), one can gallop it to see if its gallop level decreased. If so, then that would be a reason to retire.

STALLIONS
If you’re fortunate enough to have a horse that is genuinely qualified to stand at stud (at the very least, meets the minimum suggested requirements in the FAQ on standing stallions), it can be a big decision as to whether you should retire a horse now, or race another year and rack up more glory and purse money. Again, there isn’t any right answer to whatever decision one ultimately makes.

If you have a horse that has earned close to a million in purse earnings, I say try to get that horse to reach that million dollar mark. In Thoroughbred dirt and turf divisions, in particular, there are so many stallions at stud, and the competition for good mares so intense, that getting your boy in seven figure company at least makes it more likely that he’ll get a look from those perusing the Stud Book. Likewise, if you have a mixer, steeplechaser, or AW Thoroughbred, if you can get him over the 500k mark, that can only help him get noticed when he retires to stud.

If your future stud is the leading money earner for your stable, that would be a reason to keep racing as long as possible. You might be thinking, “But I can make a lot of money from stud fees”. Take it from a highly experienced stallion owner — there are very, very few stallions that get any significant degree of outside mares. You might have a stallion that gets a healthy number of mares his first season, but as soon as the offspring gallop as yearlings, and any SIMperior player with access to the Stud Book sees that his yearlings don’t have an excessively high number of freak and stakes gallopers, then interest will drop off significantly. Mares owners want a stallion that gets a high nick grade (relative to its particular division) with their mare, and one who sires lots of high level gallopers. You might be surprised at how few stallions there are from the lists of well over a hundred that are available in particular divisions, that meet those criteria. In short — just like real life — most of the mares, within any division, go to a relatively small handful of highly appealing stallions. (That’s why the SIM keeps coming up with ways to encourage players to diversify bloodlines.) So, in short, if your future stallion is the major breadwinner for your stable, and you’re asking my opinion, I would suggest keeping him racing as long as he’s competitive in stakes races. Otherwise, you might find yourself broke within a few years of his retirement, especially if you’ve invested a lot of money in purchasing mares for him.

Another reason to keep racing is simply because, no matter how good of a racehorse he was, your stallion might turn out to be a poor nicker upon retirement. Unless you’re really savvy about bloodlines, you probably are not going to be able to make an accurate determination ahead of time about how well your boy is going to nick. So, if you retire while the horse is racing well, only to find out that nobody is interested because he doesn’t nick well, you’ll probably be wishing that you hadn’t retired him just yet.

Some players feel it’s better to retire a top horse as soon as he has nothing left to prove, since it’ll be that much more time that he can earn stud fees. I doubt a player needs more than two hands to count the stallions in SIM that are still getting as many mares at the end of their stud career, as at the beginning. Even excellent, proven sires get considerably fewer mares as they age, because most breeders are more excited about the new young studs that they can send their mares to. So, I truly don’t feel that a stallion is going to earn more stud fee income by standing, say, eleven years at stud, instead of “only” ten years at stud.

On the other hand, if it bothers you to have a highly consistent horse finish poorly in its last few races — meaning he’s “gone bad” — then you’ll be happier retiring him sooner, rather than later, so you don’t have to be distressed about wondering when he’s going to decline, and having that decline validated with poor finishes.

Also, if you’re just plain really, really excited to hurry-up and retire your boy, and breed some mares to him, then that would be a reason to retire him, rather than to keep him racing. You don’t need anyone’s permission to retire him just because you feel like it. That’s as good a reason as any.

BROODMARES
Most of the reasoning for stallions, above, is also going to apply to a filly or mare that you’re considering whether to retire now, or race next year. Of course, mares don’t earn stud fees, but an exceptionally high quality one can earn income from being leased out. More importantly, mares are only going to have 8-10 foals in their broodmare career (since they can die from foaling, once hitting the age of twelve), so if the mare is an outstanding one, you’ll later wish you’d started breeding her sooner rather than racing her longer.

However, just as stallions who are in demand from other breeders are rare, the vast, vast majority of mares are going to be disappointing producers, no matter their excellent pedigree, and no matter how wonderful their race record is. You can’t know the broodmare level from the Bloodstock Agent until after you’ve retired your filly, and if the comment is disappointing — or your newly retired mare otherwise doesn’t nick as well as other mares you own — then you’ll be wishing you’d kept her in training and kept earning purse money from her. Yet, even if she is a blue hen mare that nicks high, the chances are still good that her foals will be disappointing. Just as there can be only one Louisville Derby winner a game year, among all the “freak” and high level “stakes” gallopers of the crop, there are very, very few mares that actually become outstanding broodmares.

GELDINGS AND OTHER NON-BREEDING STOCK
Wondering whether or not to retire a nice gelding usually doesn’t have the pressure of retiring breeding stock, since you don’t risk the disappointment of having the horse turn out to be a poor stud or broodmare. What can be consequential is the loss of purse earnings. However, if the horse isn’t racing as well as he once was, you might not be getting much purse money from him anymore, anyway. So, losing his earnings isn’t really a loss.

As a matter of practicality, you can always try a struggling horse in a lower class of race to see if it helps his performance. Obviously, that might mean you lose him to a claim. That might be a good thing, if you’re a financially practical player. On the other hand, if you feel sentimental toward the horse, then you might not want to risk dropping him into claimer company, or dropping him into lower company if he’s been running for a high priced tag. In that case, you’re probably better off retiring, when you can still feel good about the career the horse has had.

I’ve had some parameters in place for years, concerning when to stop with a horse, that have served me well. I call it the “three strikes” rule. If a horse runs worse than third three races in a row, then that’s usually when I retire it. However, if it’s, say, been running stakes races, I’ll first drop it into allowance or at least modest claiming company — in fact, I’ll usually do that after two consecutive off-the-board finishes — to see if it improves the horse’s performance. If the horse doesn’t automatically win in lesser company, then he’s done, and it’s time to retire.

My exception to the above is maidens. I will always try, at least through the end of a horse’s 4yo season, to get it to break its maiden. Over one-third of all races in SIM are for maidens, so it’s a rare horse that can never win, as long as you keep trying. However, having said that, I don’t keep racing a maiden that is doing poorly. I’ll instead just not race it for half a game year or so, and then try again with it, since the maiden races should keep getting softer with time, as other horses win and move on to NW2 company, or their owners give up on them. I feel much better about pensioning a low quality 4yo with, say, a 5: 1-0-1 record, than one with a 15: 1-0-1 record. I rarely have horses with the latter record, since I don’t keep racing them when they’re doing so badly. I just let them sit, until I feel the maiden races have softened up enough that the horse can now be competitive.

If you’ve had a colt that you’re resisted gelding, because he teases you with enough good stakes finishes that you’ve toyed with the idea of retiring him to stud, but you’ve finally admitted that he’s just not good enough to stand stud, I wouldn’t pension him after some poor finishes, without first gelding him to see if it improves his performance. While the benefits of gelding are sometimes minimal, it can be highly beneficial in some cases. So, you may as well try one race with him as a gelding, before retiring from racing. As far as I’m concerned, it doesn’t make any sense to retire an uncut male if you don’t intend to use him as a stud horse. Once it’s been determined that the horse isn’t of breeding quality, he should be gelded, and maybe one can encourage more purse earnings from him.

KEEP OR SEND TO GREENER PASTURES?
When a horse is pensioned (retired without being used for breeding), the owner is no longer charged the $5 day rate. However, unless the horse is kept at one’s own farm, there will be a $20 weekly board charge, assuming the horse is at a farm that charges the minimum of $20. That actually adds up to only $320 per game year, so pensioned horses don’t cost much to keep around. Still, unless one feels particularly sentimental about a horse, why would they want to keep it around?

One reason to keep a pensioned horse around is that it can be given a second career. There’s five options for second careers, which can be broken down into three categories:

Stable Pony — a stable pony can “pony” (gallop without a rider) yearlings and racehorses for exercise. In order to pony a horse, the pony must be at the same location as the horse being ponied, so a stable pony might need to be shipped. A pony can pony multiple horses in a day, and in group training.

Fox Hunter or Lesson Horse — the owner will receive occasional, random cutesy messages about how the horse is doing.

Eventer or Rodeo Horse — the horse can randomly earn prize money from weekly events ($10,000 for first place, $7500 for second place, $5000 for third place), which the owner will be notified of via an in-game message.

The last might sound like a good idea, in that your pensioned horse can earn passive income. However, there are probably thousands of pensioned horses in SIM that are eventer or rodeo horses, so competition for the random weekly drawings is fierce. Therefore, just because you turn your retired gelding or mare into an eventer or rodeo horse doesn’t mean that you’ll ever see any prize money from the activity. Still, you might.

If you like a lean stable, you’ll probably just want to send your pensioned horse to Greener Pastures. That’s what Greener Pastures is for. However, GPing a horse is only free if the horse is 4yo or older. If younger than four, it’ll cost you five thousand bucks for giving up on him so soon.

FINAL THOUGHTS
I once wrote on article on my feeling of keeping top horses in training, from a sheer sporting aspect. After all, unlike real life, SIM players don’t have to worry about their top horses suffering catastrophic breakdowns, and perhaps losing their lives before having a chance to stand stud. Within an hour after the article was published, I received a message from the trainer of a top dirt router from a few years prior, who told me he’d often regretted retiring the horse after his 3yo season, even though he was earning a fortune from stud fee income. This player felt pressure to retire the horse after less than 1.5 years of racing, because “everyone said” that’s what he should do, and he now wondered how good the horse would have been at four.

There isn’t any right or wrong to when a player decides to retire or otherwise quit with a horse. There isn’t a One Right Answer. Only the player themselves can know what factors are most important to them. For those who are inexperienced, and worried that there might be something that they’re not considering, hopefully this article has helped them sort out what would be best for their individual situation.

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