Feature Race | Auction | Breeding | General | Hall of Fame | Harness | Interviews | Mixed Breed | New Players | Racing | Site Updates | Steeplechasing | Steward's Cup | Triple Crown

Sponsoring Races Part 2 – The Create a Race Page

Original article written by Regina Moore posted 14 years 0 weeks ago

Sponsoring a race gives players a great deal of flexibility in choosing the race conditions. However, there are two limitations to keep in mind. The first is that the fifth day before race day is the deadline for sponsoring a race. In other words, Sunday is the deadline for sponsoring races for the following Friday, Friday is the deadline for sponsoring for the following Wednesday, and Wednesday is the deadline for sponsoring for the following Monday. Also, just as with entering carded races, you can’t sponsor more than two weeks out. Secondly, the tracks available for your race is limited to the days it normally races. For example, you can’t sponsor a race in South America for a Friday, since the South American tracks only run on Mondays.

To sponsor a race from your Office page, go to “Racing”, and then select “Create a Race”. The following goes through each screen needed to complete the process.

Race Condition – This is where you choose the type of race, and applicable purse, and therefore how many game points you want to spend. Any type of claiming race is 1000 game points and will have a 10k purse. Any type of allowance race or maiden special weight is 2000 game points and will have a 25k purse. Stakes races start at a listed stakes for 4000 game points and a 50k purse, all the way up to 15,000 game points and Grade 1 status with a 200k purse.

Breed – This is obvious.

Gender – You can choose “open”, “male and gelding”, “female”, or “gelding”. Restricting a race to just geldings is one of my favorite ways of creating a softer spot for a horse that is solid, but has no chance of beating the future stallions of his generation.

Select a Date – This is where you’ll see up to three available race days within the next two weeks. Again, choosing the specific date is important, if you’re wanting to sponsor a race for a particular track. In other words, if you’re a newbie who wants to sponsor a race for Trial Park, then the race day has to be a Monday.

Restrictions – Here you’ll choose the age (2yo, 3yo, 4yo, or 4yo and up), player status (All, SIMperior, New Player, or Junior), and the surface (dirt, turf, All Weather, or steeplechase). If you’re trying to create a softer spot for your horse, you may as well take advantage of these restrictions. I find it particularly frustrating if I have a 3yo with no chance against hardy older horses, including in cheap claiming races. Therefore, keeping a race for 3yos only is a way of avoiding those hardy old horses. In contrast, if you have an older horse and find it at a disadvantage against talented young 3yos, then making the race for 4yos only or 4yo and up is a way of keeping the precocious youngsters away.

Choose Track – This screen lists the available tracks for your chosen race day, and includes an icon showing the weather. Choosing the track can be very important if you’re not wanting to ship far, if you have a horse that favors a particular track condition, and/or if you’re wanting the race to only be for horses bred in a particular state or country. Obviously, if you want to restrict the race to “English-breds” (which will be on the next screen), you can’t have the race run in France.

Can’t find the track you want? The problem will be in the choices you’ve made in the prior screens. For example, Junior High won’t show up as an available track unless you restricted the race to Junior Players. Arcadia won’t show up if you selected the race to be run on a Monday, because Arcadia doesn’t race on Mondays. Harness Expo won’t show up if you have a Standardbred trotter, because only pacers race at Harness Expo.

Final Screen – This is where you name the race, which is required. You can be as creative or as mundane as you desire. Next, choose the distance and surface. If you’ve chosen to sponsor a claiming or allowance race, this screen will give you the option of further conditions, such as “NW2”, “NW3”, etc. You may as well use this option to your advantage, if you want to make sure that your horse doesn’t have to compete against horses that have won more races. Also on this screen, if the race is a claimer, you can now choose a claiming price from 5k to 100k.

Finally, you have the option of restricting the race to horse bred in the state or country where the race is being run. Again, this is often a good thing to take advantage of if you’re trying to create a soft spot for your horse. On the other hand, if it’s a less populated region such as, say, Italy, there might not be any other horses that enter.

Confirm Your Choices – This is the screen where you see what the race will look like. Check it very carefully. Despite all my experience with sponsoring, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve sponsored a race for a horse, and pushed the “Create My Sponsored Race” button, only to find out that the horse I created it for doesn’t qualify. Or, that the race otherwise didn’t turn out like I wanted.

Common mistakes when creating a race include having the race a week earlier or later than you intended, selecting for dirt when you meant turf, thinking that your filly named “Speckled Spots” was an Appy when she’s really a Quarter Horse, leaving a race open to all genders when you meant to make it only for fillies or for geldings. A mistake I make frequently is thinking my horse is a KY-bred, because he shows currently being located in Kentucky, instead of looking at the FL next to his name. He won’t qualify for the KY-bred race I just sponsored, because he’s a Florida-bred.

One thing I’ve learned to do is to have the page open in my browser for the horse I want to create the race for, and then have the Create A Race page open on another tab. That way, it’s easy to click back and forth between the tabs to verify that, yes, this horse has won two races, so I want to make the sponsored race for NW3; and yes, this really is a filly even though she has a masculine name, and I want to make the race for females only.

If you made a bad mistake and have already created your race, you can contact The Steward directly and she’ll usually change the race to what you wanted. However, this can be a problem if other players have already entered horses in the race. I usually allow myself a limit of one race a game year in which I bother The Steward with my mistake; otherwise, I just consider the mistaken race to be a gift to other players. (You can usually tell when a player has made a mistake with sponsoring a race – none of their own horses are entered!)

Once you’ve sponsored a race, there’s ongoing threads on the Forum (one for Thoroughbreds, one for mixed breeds) where you can announce your race, if you would like to make sure that others know about it.





Back to New Players articles

Copyright © 2024 SIMHorseRacing.com | Legal