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18000
Original article written by John Smith posted 1 year 2 weeks ago 18,000 wins
I wasn't sure which category to put this article - "Racing," or "Hall of Fame" I went "Hall of Fame."
This week, I noticed among the “News Headlines,” that Lee Cara had won 18,000 races. This stuck out to me for a couple of reasons. First, full disclaimer, Lee has been a benevolent donor to my fledgling barn. Lee has sent me free leases on “big horses,” such as “Dubai Dragoness,” and “Zane,” both grade 2 winners, at least, since being leased. Lee has also helped my initial breeding program this year with a couple of free breedings to his prized stallion “Ivor.” If you follow my articles, you know I promote begging in your initial stages to develop one’s barn as a newbie. I have also pointed to the general magnanimity that exists in the SIM. Without it, my barn and opportunities in the SIM would be greatly reduced. To me, these are the people that “get it,” that know without a robust community, horse racing, real or simulated suffers. So beyond Lee’s great achievements in wins this week, Lee also possess unseen metrics that benefits the entire community.
With the disclaimers done, let’s look closer at Lee’s ascent to 18000. According to Lee’s trophy page, Sim Year 20 seems to be the start of it all. According to the trophy dates, it took Lee 4 sim seasons to notch a win. However, only 2 sim seasons to have won 100 after the first win – what an improvement! Then after that – next year, Lee won 150 more races, in just one season! Lee then notched win 250 or 100 more wins in a season and 3 weeks. This rate of victory has continued to increase. After year 28 or the 8th year in, Lee won 500 more by year 30 (1000 total) and in the meantime picked up a Steward’s Cup trophy with “Desert Seaker,” In Year 29.
Win 2000 came in year 32 week, so 1000 wins in 2 seasons and 8 weeks or 1000 wins over 40 weeks which is about 25 wins a week! After Year 32, the horse accolades start to pile up. From year 32 to year 35, Lee collects two Steward Cup Trophies and The Melbourne Trophy. It looks like Lee has 32 Steward Cup wins, 6 Pegasus cup trophies and in addition to a Saudi Cup win, The Arc De Triomphe and A Baltimore Crown win. Since that year 32 breakthrough, Lee has gone on to notch 16,000 more wins as of this week. Making that average rate of wins per year of 551, 552 if we round up properly! Or 34 wins per week for 29 seasons. What a grinder!
While I am sure there are plenty of vets that can reminisce about their 18,000th win in the SIM, having just notched 100, I am thankful there are 40 season vets around to share their expertise that couldn’t have been around in Year 20. If this was the matrix, maybe “they,” are learning…
So, congrats to Lee on the culminating achievement this week, and if that win rate continues to accelerate we can expect win 20,000 around Year 64 and an unknown amount of trophies as I didn’t bother to calculate how often Lee added a trophy, but I guess in Steward Cups, that is 32 over the last 29 seasons since the first Steward’s Cup victory seasons so, 1.1 per year! A steward cup per year, how about that? So by year 64 we can expect the 20,000th win and 3 Steward’s Cup – no pressure!
As I personally reflect on Lee’s advice and help to getting started last season and in the start of this season, the best one liner sent from Lee was, “I won’t send you anything I wouldn’t race myself.” This has been true!
Many thanks and congratulations to Lee and to all the others that have helped along the way, either with me personally or with other newbies and strugglers in the SIM, keep building the community!
All the Best,
John