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Some Tips From a Newbie Whose Made a Bunch of Boo Boos

Original article written by Marzy Dotes posted 14 years 1 week ago

I’ve been here about three months and have found it to be a very cosmic experience. Now that I’m kind of figuring out what I’m doing a little bit, I have found the tips below to be useful. Now if I can be better at following them more often…but that’s a different story unfortunately.

Most of these suggestions have come up in other similar articles for new players but you really don’t know that until you try them yourself because experience alas is often the best teacher. Most of these tips cover racing and training horses which is always a learning experience and a work in progress because like, buying horses at auction and on the sales page is like a whole another experience altogether.

Fortunately, most of the horses have been very forgiving of my faux pas, missteps and trips down some rather unbeaten paths like they had legs made out of iron or something. And a few of them have stopped lunging at me and biting.

The first suggestion is the one most written and that is the one that creates the most Homer Simpson like moments when you’ve broke it like once again. So maybe by the time you read this article, you’ve done it already and can like others before you including me, smack your forehead and say, doh! And don’t beat yourself up; you’ve just gained membership to a very large crowd.

Don’t over train your horse when you first get it as this is probably one of the common mistakes made by new people, myself included. The training of Sims horses is a bit different than those in real life and less training goes a longer way. Where you can get away with giving a flesh and blood horse more to do, the Sims horses are like horses made of china in comparison. My first horse, Proud Sheila served as my teacher when after gate training her twice, jogging, galloping her and then working her on the wrong surface, said enough is enough by running poorly in her debut performance which of course was on the wrong surface. Which was of course devastating because after all, she was supposed to be the second coming of Ruffian because most new players like myself came in hoping to strike gold at least in the back of our minds but actually searching that gold is a lot more fun than finding it in my opinion. And the horses that perform well on any give date might not be the ones you expect which adds to the thrill of course.


Just giving Proud Sheila (one of the biters) rest and lots of carrots for forgiveness along with placing her better improved her performance. You can only do your best in terms of improving your horses’ performances and your training statistics especially on a limited budget but you can do a lot to keep your horses rested and sound so they’re ready to perform to their abilities on race days and you reduce costs from injuries (and did you know quarter cracks cost $7,500?). And of course, the younger the horse, the greater the time in between workouts and later races to avoid injuries which might be costly both in money and time lost. Take advantage of doing vet checks especially when they’re only $500 for new players and jogging horses (which is free analysis but tires them a bit) to determine their fitness and energy levels to help gauge when they are ready for speed workouts or races. What makes it a little tricky is that each horse might be on a different schedule in terms of its ability to recover quickly or not from hard efforts, though age is one determining factor. Proud Sheila, being three and not very quick recovered fairly soon from her racing efforts whereas another horse who was two last year is probably the slowest recovering horse in my stable. He naps for more than a month and then maybe you can think about trying him out again. Facilitate your horse’s recovery by shipping him between races to a stable rather than keeping him at the race track. The horse will recover faster especially if there’s like hot walking machines, medical care facilities and a horse spa to keep it busy while it recuperates.


Research your horses’ bloodlines and records so you can place them better in races is very important. If the sire and dam both favored dirt, try racing your horse on the dirt where it has a much higher chance of winning or placing high than it would on the turf. If the parents were successful on more than one surface, then you have more to play with but you should research the dams’ progeny to see whether they favor the sire’s surface of choice or hers. The flip side of this is that some owners don’t do this research and then place their horses on the sales page at bargain prices or they are sold by a mysterious woman named Alexandra Jaysman who drops by the sales at the stroke of midnight and drops some horses off at low prices. So if you see a Blaze the Green who’s hit rock bottom running two miles on the dirt and looks to be a bum, you might not be aware that he or she is probably a steal at $1,000. If you see a Six Eighth horse that was lapped by the other horses in some turf stake race because he decided to nibble on the running surface rather than running on it, snatch him up because you wait until 12:05, he might disappear off the page often bought by some guy who just might be the guy who used to model for cigarettes back in the day before discovering a new past time and becoming very successful at it. But be prepared to be surprised and don’t be afraid to experiment because seriously, some horses excel on surfaces where it doesn’t necessarily make much sense especially in cases with young sires.


Take advantage of free horses when they offered and it will help introduce you to the sport. Will more veteran owners hand you the keys to their pride and joys? Not often, but these opportunities to get free horses when you’re cash poor give you an opportunity to develop skills in selecting the best horses on a list through evaluating bloodlines and records which are valuable skills and also to pick the best races to enter them in. Then you get to put your skills to the test for a minimal investment and then when you’re no longer the new kid, you can do the same for those who are new kind of similar to passing it forward or something like that. I am very thankful for my two free horses Bar Room Hero and Sheik Ramone, who earn their keep because if you do right by them by placing them right, they will reward you with their best efforts. They are very good to learn from and with. And Bar Room Hero doesn’t even bite anymore! Don't expect it but be grateful when it happens.



Take advantages of opportunities to earn money through the opportunities where money is given away in contests or through writing articles. I do the latter because it’s fun, it helps in learning about horses, races and bloodlines but also because face it, if you’re getting started, it’s very hard to turn your racing stable into a profitable operation and it’s easy to wind up in debt especially if you buy more horses than you can handle at that time which is fairly easy to do as there’s something very seductive about buying horses. And the education that researching, reading and writing provides is very valuable, in learning the potential of different bloodlines and which ones work better when crossed with others, not to mention training styles. Also, even if you don’t write articles yourself, read them as they’re very good sources of information on everything from breeding to learning the ropes as a new player to who’s racing against whom, when like following some of the most exciting serials, all with cliffhangers. Reading them's enough inspiration to write yourself.


Don’t shy away from the computer generated sires as your very first horse will be one of these and there are pros and cons to owning and racing one like with any horse. The advantages are that your first one is free, you can have a horse that’s a blank slate and they are often available on the sales page for low prices. In terms of discovering where they are best suited, the clues are in their names. Blaze The Green, for example refers to the surface and distances favored by its offspring as does Marathoner and others. The disadvantages are that as a group, they tend to not be as good as many of the blood lined horses as a group (though there are certainly exceptions) but they’re perfect for when you first start out and are good teachers to help you learn what to do with a really good horse when you get one. The thing is that even though most people want a blue-blooded speedster or classic runner, most of us as new people wouldn’t really know what to do with it in terms of developing its maximum potential. That takes time, a lot of learning and yes, mistakes before you get to that point. But then that’s how it works with anything in life and that certainly includes real life horse racing.


Read the fine print on races and make sure your horse is in the race that best suits it. This is easier for some horses than others such as horses that favor the all weather surfaces and in some of the mixed breed racing. For those latter two, you might have to plan more ahead and enter the races when they first open up because more often than not, if you want to try out your brand new Rainshine offspring in a maiden or NW2 race, it’s probably going to fill faster than perhaps a dirt route would with similar conditions because it’s a newer discipline that’s still growing. But make sure you have the surface and distance correct because the aforementioned Proud Sheila by Blaze The Green had to suffer through the indignities of being accidently entered into another dirt race and still hasn’t forgiven me for that gaffe even when given a bushel of carrots. And her running style like completely changed after that gaffe, still haven’t figured out why because she had never led a race before. Maybe she liked being in her element again.


Develop your horses slowly rather than put them in races where they’re not ready to compete, at least not yet. That means not tossing even your Steward bred yearling (if you have one) into a stakes race first or second time out when it's time to race. This is hard because it’s so tempting to rush your hot prospect along but patience is a virtue here just like with the real life sport. Start out getting it over the hurdle of breaking its maiden and then when that’s done (if it can be done), prepare it for the even greater hurdle of winning its second and third races. There are a lot of well-bred horses on the sales page that started out winning or placing with good speed ratings and then were tossed into some graded stakes where they tanked, as shown by their low finish and that ominous comment, “no rally”. Once they go through that several times, even if you try to go back to running them in easier spots, they still tend to run poorly and it’s hard to get them back into racing because even a computer generated horse apparently can have its confidence shot. When you’re new, it might be a good while before you see a stakes winning horse and in a way, that’s a relief because you might feel afraid that you don’t know enough yet not to screw up a good horse. It’s good to practice how you would handle it with horses not quite to that level and to observe really good horses from the time they are yearlings to learn what racing and training regimens they undergo and which ones seem to work. So while you’re working on getting that future super star, read about how other super stars are handled thorough their online pages or articles. And when you get that first good horse, be patient. I’m practicing now until I get to that point and it helps.

Enjoy the mixed breed racing because it’s a lot of fun. Who doesn’t want to try their hand at racing Arabians and Paints, not to mention harness racing? It’s often harder to find good horses on the auction and sales pages for the mixed breeds with fairly decent records, there’s fewer established bloodlines for these breeds and finding good racing spots for some of them might be a challenge. On the other hand, there are good opportunities to buy quarter horses for example in the recent yearling auction where I picked up four of them, including horses sired by Goldmine and Dbacks (who’s way cool). My quarter horse, El Morro by Dbacks was purchased at auction for $6,000 and started making it back when he was bumped up in distance to 870 yards, just breaking his maiden in his last start. Running quarter horses is a lot of fun. Appaloosas, probably too but still trying to figure them out.

The sprints can be your friend, especially when you’re starting out with a horse or two. The toughest quality horses to access are the dirt and turf routers and females over males, but it’s amazing how many pretty decent dirt and turf sprinters wind up at auction and the sales page for pretty affordable prices. The purse money is said by some to not be as great but when you’re first starting out, that’s more of a longer term goal. There are also good opportunities for all weather sprinters and routers on the sales page especially with colts and geldings. I’m not really a proponent of all weather surfaces in real racing but they’re fun to play with on the SIMS. I think in part because it’s a newer discipline and still has a lot of potential for further development. I’ve seen some pretty surprising bought and if you have horses that appear to be mediocre, try to work them in all weather because you might be surprised. Some of those diamonds in the rough may be all weather horses in disguise.

Learn how to use the equipment if your horse needs it. I would say more on this but I’m still trying to figure it out. But if you add equipment, try a piece at a time so you’ll know if it helps or hurts your horse’s performance.

Have fun playing with the buttons. Make sure to bathe your horses after workouts, feed them carrots when they don’t bite you and don’t break them by doing too many workouts in a short period of time. Upgrading to the SIMperior gives you more buttons to push along with other things including the horse whisperer who provides you with a secret about your horse and easier ways to organize your racing schedules, a boon as stables grow in size.


Trial Park is your friend. I admit I didn’t race very much there during the first few weeks. But I’ve tried to remedy that a little bit and it’s lots of fun and I’ve had some horses break their maidens there. There’s also the wonderful Dare to Dream Program which I’ve tried twice and lost by a heartbreaking head to the winner in Week 16. But if at first you don’t succeed (or second or third…) you always can try again until your new membership expires.


Six Eighths is a running god and deserves his own monument at Trial Park. That is all.

The most important thing in all this is to remember to have fun with it. That can be hard to remember sometimes but if you keep your eye on your goals and reaching them then often it motivates you to do what you need to improve, then you’ll have a great time at it.


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