Question tor the SIM Community:

[Willowcreek Farms]

Hello to all of you across this planet of ours,
I have been playing the SIM since 2009 (I think) and am getting bored a bit. I have been running exclusively in the TS and TR divisions (got into them by accident somehow) since pretty much from the beginning. My passion in RL has always been the DIrt routers. I was thinking about cashing in all my TR and TS horses, from stakes and a freak to Blue Hens and Stars plus all the rest. My question is: am I nuts to sell everthing off to get into what is the most difficult division and starting from scratch with NO DR mares to speak of or should I just go for it?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Cheers, Carsten

[Rochelle Bos]

Honestly, I’m of the do what makes you happy team

BUT I would suggest keeping your best best things and let your other divisions kinda slowly die, if that makes sense?

[Nick Gilmore]

I totally agree with Rochelle. Maybe offer up a couple mare swaps…tr to dr. Many in the game are open to swaps and that way you can get into some lines that may not be otherwise available to the public.

[Willowcreek Farms]

Thanks Nick and Rochelle, you are probably right. I'v e spent alot of years trying to build up a BM band with mostly cast offs and breeding to high percentage crosses. Only now am I starting to have something to show for it (Just so bored of these two divisions or maybe its just RL work wearing me out). Since I haven't run in the DR division in eon, how hard/frustrating is it?

[Lucas Davenport]

To me, the only thing that keeps the game interesting is acquiring new horses. I think the suggestion of mare swaps is a good one, since I do think TS and TR are slightly harder to find nice mares than DR. Or if swaps are slow to get worked, just do a lease auction with yours and put the money back into DRs. There are plenty of lease auctions for DR mares each Sim year.

I would say go slowly into DR though, it is very competitive and there are plenty of very good players that concentrate in that area. I would not give up my TS and TR's to buy into DR, so I would be inclined to just dip my toes in first. If you go headfirst and don't succeed immediately you could find yourself kicking yourself in the ?>*& over what you did.

PS to your latest post: It is VERY hard, and I have virtually unlimited funds to get into it with.

[Willowcreek Farms]

Thanks for the advice and honesty Lucas. The more I think about it the harder it seems to just let all my years of my work go on a whim. I actually thought it would be harder to get my hands on decent DR mares than other divisions as it beeing such a tough and competative division, players would hoard their good mares.

[Xander Zone]

DR is easy even this DS guy has won a derby

[Willowcreek Farms]

So what's the key to success? Breeding quality or breeding large numbers?

[Lily Wilkins]

DR is a tough division, but it's not impossible. You just have to be very patient, and study the bloodlines like crazy.
When I first decided I wanted to get into DR, I advertised on the Forum that I wanted to do so, and some very generous players offered me leases. That definitely helped. I also made it my mission to comb claiming races every day and claim any fillies who worked decently or threw good speed figures (in my experience, Allowance and up gallops tend to translate into Formidable or better mares) or fillies who had back-class in their pedigrees. It's amazing what you can find in the claiming ranks.. this Maryland Million great-granddaughter was a claim; she's a Blue Hen and her Stakes two year old won at first asking.

So my advice is: ask for help/seek mare swaps and see what you get, then claim some fillies to retire and breed. The way you choose to go about things is completely up to you.... Quantity makes it more likely you'll get a random slide, but quality is what will sustain your Dirt Route program for generations to come.

[Willowcreek Farms]

Excellent advice Lily. So pretty much the same as I have been doing with my TRs and TSs up till now. Will have to swap some of the equity I have bred for some decent TR mares.

[Ren Marston]

I am really new to the game but heres what I think:
Definitely do what makes you happy, but I wouldn't sell EVERYTHING, maybe keep a few! Why not do all three divisions? It can be tricky but it'd be a good way of getting your foot in the door DR wise without tossing the rest off

[Gwayne's World]

So what's the key to success? Breeding quality or breeding large numbers?

A generous slide breeding your own. Or hitting the jackpot with a Steward bred. Come join the DR fun. Always room for one more.

[Craig Mcgee]

Durn TBs =p

[Nini Panini]

So what's the key to success? Breeding quality or breeding large numbers?

I don't recommend breeding large numbers, unless you like to run a large operation. You will end up with a lot of garbage horses that can barely win anything, and then many of them become money sinks. It's a quick way to get fatigued on the game. There are definitely people who enjoy running hundreds of horses and can do so easily and happily, but I am definitely not one of those people.

Breeding quality is tricky, because there are so many "quality" mares in DR. But what's your definition of quality? A blue hen mare with a great pedigree/lovely female family? There are a ton of these, but a large portion of them never produce a good foal. You can accumulate these (they're usually still expensive) and hope that their classy pedigrees will pull through and earn you a good foal who can become a cornerstone, and this is a completely valid technique. I'm honestly a pretty big fan of this, but that gets expensive. If you're not paying hundreds of thousands of dollars for a lease, you're swapping a mare of your own to take the chance. Either way, you're paying, bar a gift horse.

True quality in my opinion when it comes to DR is a mare who is proven, who can produce multiple black type foals. Even then, within the "true quality" mares there are different tiers. Let it Go and Forgotten Hopes types who are incredibly rare and never really miss, mares that don't produce crazy good horses every single time but still hit more than they miss, and mares who are more erratic but still produce, mares who never produce Grade 1 types but still land on stakes horses that can compete at a lower level, and so on. These are all rare.

No matter what kind of mare you have, any of them can miss, and many of them can hit with the help of a slide. It just depends how you want to play it.

I think the key to success is persistence. Play the long game. Get your hands on nice families whenever you can and do your research on crosses and the best stallions. Like other people mentioned, if you can get your foot in the door with a good swap, that's amazing. At the very least, I think it's a great place to start. It almost never happens overnight, but eventually, success will come. All it takes is the right horse.

Edit: I definitely agree with people saying you shouldn't completely sell all your stock, especially your best ones!

[Willowcreek Farms]

Thanks Nini,
I have been playing the long game with the TRs and TSs. I have sunk all my earnings into buying medium priced mares at best and have bred to sires that produce the best percentage of quality runners for that particular cross. I have never had enough in the bank to buy a SB yearling. I try to keep my numbers around 200 starts per year. My numbers are ballooning right now because I am trying to support my "mediocre" stallion. Big mistake but he is my first homebred millionaire. I think thats what is getting tedious as well. I just thought that in order to actually get one of those super DR BMs I would have to sell the farm. I will try a few lease swaps first with my Blue Hens and Stars and maybe lose some of those mediocre mares for my mediocre stallion.

I just have this itch to get on the Triple Crown Trail, somehow, someday.