Tips for Intermediate Breeders

Original article written by Wc Lee posted 8 weeks 0 days ago

With the recent opening of Transitional Park, there is a great opportunity for new players to experiment with breeding without having to face competition from the established stables.

I encourage every new player to dive into breeding. Breeding is one of the most fun and, at the same time, most frustrating aspects of the SIM. I have spent countless hours analyzing data on the SIM trying to figure out the best way to breed good progeny. Breeding is a also a massive sink hole, and could lead you to SIM bankruptcy if you are not careful.

I have been playing the SIM for a year and half and am now finishing up my 5th season. I have one more season to go before I exit the ranks of Intermediate Players and become an Advanced Player.

In this article, I provide a list of DO’s and DON’Ts for breeding.

1) Do start breeding as early as you can. The SIM prevents you from breeding until after your 6th week of playing, but after that I suggest you dive in. Transitional Park has races for 3 years old and older, so if you don’t start early enough, you will not be able to enter into those races before you graduate to Advance Player standing.

2) Don’t spend all of your money on breeding. In my first year, I spent all my purse earnings (plus money I received from writing articles) on Breeding. This amounted to SIM $1.8 million. To date, my first crop of horses have only earned back SIM$483K. I freely admit I made some foolish mistakes in my first breeding. The point is breeding is expensive, so don’t expect to get back the money you spent on Stud Fees.

3) Do diversify your breeding to cover multiple divisions. Transitional Park has both a dirt track and a turf track. Transitional Park has races for Sprinters, Milers and Routers. So you can run horses for six of the nine Thoroughbred divisions at Transitional Park. The only divisions that you cannot enter at Transitional Park, are the All Weather Divisions. The SIM just opened up two new All Weather tracks: Ben Nevis in Scotland and The Moritz in Colorado. These two new All Weather tracks, plus the existing All Weather tracks, give you opportunities to race if you want to breed All Weather horses. The All Weather divisions have the fewest horses and are great divisions to start. You just won’t be able to race your All Weather horses at Transitional Park.

4) Don’t breed Dirt Routers unless you know what you are doing or want your head handed back to you on a plate. In my first breeding season, I had dreams of winning the Triple Crown and so I only bred Dirt Routers. Needless to say, my dreams quickly died on Festivus. Dirt Router is the most competitive division in the SIM. There are more Dirt Router horses than any other horse type. I have had a Stakes gallop Dirt Router horse struggle to win her first race. I have had a Freak gallop Dirt Router horse struggle to win a Stakes race.

5) Do invest in a SIMperior subscription. The Stud Book has a wealth of information on the available Stallions and potential pairings. You can easily get overwhelm with the amount of data that is available. I have looked at some of the statistics and not know what to do with the information, only to come back a few months later with a better understanding.

6) Don’t spend a fortune on Stud Fees. I have spent $150K on a stud fee to breed a mare to a Dirt Router stallion only to have the progeny turn up to be a Productive gallop. Conversely, my best horse, a Freak Dirt Sprinter was bred to a stallion with a $25K stud fee. To date, that freak has won more than 10x her the stud fee in race earnings. The most expensive stallion may not necessarily provide you with the best progeny. Especially at the beginning when SIM$ is short, I would go with quantity over quality.

7) Do take advantage of Game and a Half Point day, which allows you to buy game points at a discount. Game Point and a Half day is coming up shortly and will allow you to buy a SIMperior subscription for less it would cost normally

8) Don’t get frustrated. The SIM is difficult. There are people that have been playing the SIM for a long time and have difficulty breeding. It took me several season of breeding, before I got my first successful batch of foals.

9) Do breed fillies. The mares in your Breeding Barn are what differentiates you from the rest of the players. Everybody, given enough SIM$, has access to the same stallions, but your broodmares are unique. Especially at the beginning, your mares are going to be fairly weak. If you look at the For Sale pages and the Auctions, you will see that good broodmares are expensive. The most economical way to acquire good broodmares is to breed your own. But it takes time, multiple generations, for you to turn your initial crop of mares into a successful barn of broodmares. The SIM allows you to breed the first 20 foals as fillies without a penalty. After the first 20 foals, you have to keep your fillies to colts ratio 1 to 1. If you breed 21 foals, 10 must be colts or you pay the 250 game point filly fee for every additional filly. If you are going to be breeding 20 or fewer foals, make them all fillies.

10) Don’t spend a lot of SIM$ on colts. Only a very small percentage of colts will end up as Stallions. Almost all colts will never get close to the Breeding Shed. If you have SIM$ to spend, spend them on fillies. Colts are a genetic dead end.

11) Do take advantage of the end of the year Alexandra Jaysman (AJ) Fire Sale. During the break, the horses on the Game Sale pages will go on sale for $100 each. This is great place to find broodmares for what I call filler colts. Filler colts are what I use to keep the sex ratio balanced. For $100 you can buy a broodmare that has already been Bloodstock Agent checked and breed her to an inexpensive stallion. If you get lucky, the random slide will give you a good horse. If not, you have not spent a lot and you get another slot to breed a filly.

12) Don’t buy 2 year old or 3 year old fillies during the AJ $100 Fire Sale. It will cost you $5000 to send her back to AJ or you have to spend $55 a week to keep her around. If you buy a 4 year or older mare, you can send her back to AJ for free after you have bred her.

13) Do ask for help. The SIM community is very welcoming. Ask for help on the forum. Ask questions. Listen to what others are saying.

14) Don’t restrict yourself to just Transitional Park. Transitional Park only offers around a dozen races each week. With 6 Thoroughbred divisions, claiming races, maiden races and stakes races, there are not enough races for you to race all of your horses, if you exclusively race in Transitional Park. Transitional Park is an great place to race your horses, but not your only opportunity to race your horses.

15) Do have fun. In my opinion, breeding is the best part of the SIM.

16) Don’t give up. If at Festivus, the gallops of your yearlings are not what you hope for, there is always another season. If your yearlings are Late Bloomers or Progressives, there is a good chance that they will continue to improve.

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