Y56 - Sale Auction - M&M Barn Sale by Michael McGuire

[Michael McGuire]

I'm selling off my entire barn except for one horse. I was going to quit this game completely and have all of my horses sold off, but I decided to race my one great homebred the rest of this year. I also wanted to give Emily and the SIM crew a chance to fix this currently broken game before I decided to leave for good.

My Sale Auction link: M&M Barn Sale by Michael McGuire.


Why do I say this game is currently broken? Why do I feel like leaving for good? Well ... it's simple ... The breeding of horses is broken, too many Freaks per division (TB Dirt Routers especially) which leads to quality horses on down not able to compete at their gallop level.

Case in point, my horse Simster (NY), she is a 4yo Filly (in her prime) STAKES galloper at her PEAK who last out couldn't even hit OTB (On The Board, 1st - 3rd) in an NW2 Lifetime AND she barely hit ITM (In The Money, 1st - 5th) by placing 5th! ARE YOU KIDDING ME GAME!? I know this is not a one-off, all of you know that this is a problem. When you have STAKES horses not able to WIN or even hit OTB in ALLOWANCE races, you have a BROKEN game. Then on down, we have ALLOWANCE horses who can't WIN ore even hit OTB in NW2-5 Lifetime, or even break their MAIDEN! ETC.!, Etc.!, etc.!

I've played this game long enough to know how to get a horse fit, ready, rested, and entered into their best distances / level in order for them to perform at their best. SO I don't want to hear excuses from players covering for a game that we all know to be currently broken. Instead, FIX IT!

Another point on breeding and why this game is so broken. I bred this FREAK, TB - Dirt Router, Filly: Sim Royalty (NY). I was extremely happy when I first read her 'Freak' gallop comment when she was a Yearling. That feeling of accomplishment for being able to breed a Freak quickly went away when I entered her into the Steward's Cup Juvenile Fillies of Y54 and heard Emily (The Steward) announce that Sim Royalty was 1 of 14 FREAKS in the race! Here is a link to Emily's call of the Y54 Steward's Cup Juvenile Fillies. You can't have 14 Freaks from ONE crop, in ONE division (TB - DR, Females), and say your game resembles any way Real Life Racing or that it's simply not broken.

Also when it comes to how many Graded Stakes Winners that are sired by some of the BEST stallions from crop to crop (year to year), this game is completely broken on that front. The average number of Graded Stakes Winners from crop to crop a GREAT stallion will sire is ... 2! And BTW, siring a Graded Stakes Winner does NOT mean that any of those horses are FREAKS! Secretariat, Seattle Slew, American Pharoah, Zenyatta, etc., etc. ARE FREAKS. They are the ones we witness every 3 to 5 plus years in horse racing AND these FREAKS all don't come to us as Dirt Routers, some are Turf Milers (Frankel! Hello), or 1 1/2 Milers on grass, Dirt Sprinters, etc. If you follow horse racing long enough you know the 'Freaks' that have come down the stretch and you know they don't come every year. Here is a link to a BloodHorse article on siring graded stakes winners: Graded Stakes Winners Fluctuate by Sire's Crop Year By Byron Rogers.


HOW TO FIX THIS GAME

Now that I have ranted about how much this game is broken, let me give you my opinion on how this game can be fixed. Straight to the point, the SIM needs to extremely limit the number of FREAKS bred from year to year, and the SIM needs to set Gallop Ability to Speed Figures. We know that the SIM's Training Ratings (gallop abilities) are: FLAT - Different Career, Claimer, Solid, Productive, Allowance, Stakes, & Freak. CHASE - Different Career, Some Potential, Allowance, Stakes. We also know that the SIM's Speed Figures go on a scale from 1 - 100. By setting Gallop Ability to Speed Figures the horses bred year to year will be competitive at their correct level. I see it something like this:

Grade 1 - Speed Figures: 96-100 - Freaks & Stakes Gallopers.
Grade 2 - Speed Figures: 91-95 - Stakes Gallopers.
Grade 3 - Speed Figures: 86-90 - Stakes Gallopers.
Listed Stakes - Speed Figures: 81-85 - Stakes & Allowance Gallopers, *Allowance @ Restricted State Stakes, maybe.
Allowance $$$ - Speed Figures: 76-80 - Allowance Gallopers.
Allowance $$ - Speed Figures: 71-75 - Allowance Gallopers.
Allowance $ - Speed Figures: 66-70 - Allowance Gallopers.
NW2-5 Lifetime - Speed Figures: ? - Productive Gallopers.
Maiden - Speed Figures: 1-100 - All Gallop Abilities, the SF you receive from this race tells the player what type of ability their horse currently has.

Claim $$$ - Speed Figures: ? - Gallop ?
Claim $$ - Speed Figures: ? - Solid Gallopers.
Claim $ - Speed Figures: ? - Claimer Gallopers.
Maiden Claim - Speed Figures: 1-100 - All Gallop Abilities, the SF you receive from this race tells the player what type of ability their horse currently has.

*Note: In my opinion, there should never be more than 1 Freak bred in a crop year, per type of horse: Thoroughbred, QH, etc. Sprinter Division could have 3 types of top sprinters meaning at Short Sprints (5f-5.5f), Medium Sprints(6f-6.5f), and at Long Sprints(7f-7.5f). Miler Divison would only have the top 1 Milers. Router Divisions could have 4 types of top routers, for example: at Short Routes (8.5f-9f), Medium Routes (10f + -), Long Routes (12f-2 miles).


It is my sincere hope that Emily and the SIM take this advice to fix this game. If nothing is done, I will leave this game for good at the end of this game year (Y56) IF not sooner. That may not mean much to you, but I assure you that future players will come to see what I have and will leave the game as well. Good luck with your stable. I truly wish all of you the very best of health during this pandemic and I hope we change for the better.

Sincerely & Respectfully,
Michael McGuire

[Mr. Lord Rich]

Your freak is better than mine and I paid 8.4 mill for her https://www.simhorseracing.com/horse.ph ... ID=1100904

[Art K Stables]

As far as the game goes if the problem is just too many freaks , all they need to do which has been done before is adjust the scale so the gallop is more indicative of the ability, of course the other side of it is then all the long faces at festivus, in the end it’s about expectations and disappointment and that’s all this “fix” is about

[Dylan Christensen]

Believe it or not you don't get any gallop comments in real life

[Danny Derby]

You should have posted this in the "One Small Thing" thread.

[Randall Allen]

The words stakes, freak, allowance are just human words to try to describe computer code of a horse’s ability, because they couldn’t put the binary code on the horses page. They can adjust the gallop comments to say whatever they want, but the horse is still the same behind the scenes, computer code wise. In other words, it doesn’t matter if the word to describe Sim Royalty is freak, stakes or allowance: the computer code is still the same, the horse is still the same regardless of the words you see on the horse’s page.

[Tom Lin]

Believe it or not you don't get any gallop comments in real life

Michael. Don't get wrapped up in gallop comment expectations. It's just a starting point and means nothing really - race results matter.
I think you've done really well considering you've bred a total of 139 horses. Having bred a young DR filly with almost a half million earned from that sample size is quite an accomplishment.