I really do feel like quitting this game, at times.

[Stormy Peak]

I feel like I'm just butting my head against the wall.

I had a 2 year old scary trotter finish 3rd tonight.

http://www.simhorseracing.com/race.php?RaceID=384428

One horse that finished ahead of him was about the only one I could see who might have had a shot at doing so and that one placed 2nd.

In their maiden races, the winner won at 1:54:42, the horse who finished 2nd was a little faster than that, and my guy won his at 1:54:23 -- so next race...my guy finishes 3rd ???

I've been disappointed in my horses before in not finishing well, been surprised a few times when they did way worse than I thought they would. But this one just down right ticks me off. Seems like I've had too many horses that there tagged as stakes or wows, and now scary that can't seem to do anything other than run fast workouts.

I don't think I've ever been this upset over a race result. Ever. My horse showed not only in his workouts that he was super fast (rated like in the top two or three fastest) but also in the first week of racing he had the 2nd fastest finish in a maiden race for that week...the fastest being something like and incredible 1:54:16.

Now he finishes 3rd... Again, I would have been disappointed with a 2nd, and thought that even a good possibility but not 3rd.

I'm pretty sure the Sim hates me.

Stormy

[Mr. Lord Rich]

I am sorry Stormy, I really hope things turn around for you.
keep your head up.

[440 Racing Barn]

dont feel so bad i had 2 in the tc race and did not much asked the vet and got great commints can we fire the vet hang in there moonlight will pull us through the rough times

[Laura Ferguson]

To me, and this probably isn't any comfort to you, it looks like he simply didn't have a good trip. He had the comment "wide turns" and went from being more than 5 1/2 lengths off the lead at the second call to be beaten two necks at the finish. That's a huge move. It may simply be poor racing luck, and with a better trip, he'll be back in the winner's circle. So, while frustrating, don't despair.

Also, some horses improve after a race or two, and the winner may simply be one of them. Or, he may have had the cleaner trip.

Hope your horse does better next time and gives your spirits a lift! This game is like golf sometimes - you get frustrated, and then you get a win that picks you up and leaves you with a smile on your face.

[Carole Hanson]

Not to be a downer Stormy but the winner has just as good works as your horse. And it looks like his race was easier on him last out. You never know which one will be the best until they race against each other. Another day your horse may beat the winner.

[Stormy Peak]

Not to be a downer Stormy but the winner has just as good works as your horse. And it looks like his race was easier on him last out. You never know which one will be the best until they race against each other. Another day your horse may beat the winner.

The Commander's 3 fastest works were 1:54:33, 1:54:40, and 1:54:47 His slowest 1:54:79
Orbit The Sun's - 3 fastest works were 1:54:44, 1:54:46, and 1:54:59 His slowest 1:54:82

Also, according to the Steward, doing the gate, paddock, and pony training is suppose to help a tiny bit - my horse has done those - the winner didn't.

I don't know about the winner's jock, but I know my jockey, Parker Fox, has a top comment as far as talent.

As Laura said, maybe this is just bad luck...but it still has me upset because it's just another bit of bad luck stacked on top of some other things for me.

I had a Quarter Horse named Mal, who had one of the fastest workout times as a two year old. I was barely able to get him to win a maiden and some non-winner races, and he got lucky enough to finally win a stakes race. 26 starts and 6 wins....for a horse with like on of the top workout times for that year's crop.

My turf router mare Forgave.
She was listed as a scary and won over a million. She's listed as a Star Broodmare now...but every hypo mate with top stallions have just been a B+ (and I read all the time about people with star broodmares getting A ratings)
Her offspring so far have been disappointments
~She has a 3 year old who hasn't even come close to breaking his maiden. 5f turf works averaging at the 1 minute mark.
~She has a 2 year old listed as wings, his 5f turf works are all above the 59 second mark
~Her 3rd foal, galloped as stakes...but stakes in the Turf Router field isn't much more than an allowance horse.

I really thought given what the computer has told me about that mare, that she would have thrown at least 1 scary by now. Given all her hypo's are B+ from stallions with decent percentges... I don't know what else to do.

I had a really great sprinter with Storm The Blockade, he ended up being only a so so stallion - same deal with my millionaire turf miler Won't Back Down...and it just seems like so many others here who have big winners end up with big stallions from them too.

I am flustered beyond belief .

-------
Stormy

[Carole Hanson]

Stormy, a few things I disagree on, but am certainly not trying to argue with you on:

I personally think a nice fast wings can make you a lot of money in the turf router division, whilst yes there are a ton of stakes in that division, I find that it isn't as competitive as mixed breeds where having a stakes horse is having an allowance horse at best.

Also, another thing one player once told me is that one day I will hopefully understand that it's not always the fastest worker or the strongest galloper who wins the race. I think I'm starting to get why now.

Whilst yes you did this training and I'm sure it helped, I'm also pretty sure the difference wasn't significant enough. I guess it's sort of like gelding.

There have been a few cases of great horses failing to live up to their race records in the breeding barn. I think in this game, pedigree is massively important and if a horse isn't pedigreed well enough, it will not be a great sire or broodmare (well, we can be far more lenient on broodmares though).

I know this game is frustrating sometimes, I myself have experienced horses finishing 3rd or 2nd when I thought they'd win easily and had credentials for it, but I guess it's like a learning experience. For example, I have this really nice turf sprint filly who is a multiple stakes winner and in her first 2 races this year didn't place as I'd have hoped she would. I looked more closely at the races and found they were on Yielding courses. Next out on firm ground, she ran an extremely game 2nd place which I was very satisfied with. I learned something about her that day, maybe you'll learn something about The Commander too

Wherever the SIM takes you and your colt, good luck

[Louise Bayou]

To be honest with you Stormy....the mixers WILL make you pull your hair out!! First through 5th place can be a nose,nose,nose,head,head. If you look at a bunch of the mixer races you will see that it happens 90% of the time. Its just how it goes with them. I have Scary goods that can't break their maidens.

Some of my Scary Goods that are not so Scary: Bad Fast, Black Seventeen who is a maiden after 3 starts,Wanna Piece of Me who is still a maiden,Chiseled in Stone who is still a maiden. Great now I am depressed too! haha


I agree with you about the "star" broodie comments. It is super frustrating to get them and the mare produce nothing. It's something that I think should be fixed ASAP. We pay $10k for something and honestly we don' get what we pay for. And before anyone jumps in all freaking out, I totally get that the random slide is still there BUT at some point a "star" mare should produce something of note. Or the comments need to be updated. A star broodie comment is now a running joke.

And if it makes you feel any better Stormy, I just galloped my "Scary Good" filly We Have Insurance and she went down to "Great Gallop"...good times,good times!

[Josh Lamp I]

I never have this problem, my 100's of Scary's always win! (sarcasm)
Stormy i know you believe that training helps you, and the Steward may have told you so, but who can even be sure what the right formula is to help not make your horse slightly tired? Also, bad racing luck trumps training i'm sure.

[Bryan Doolittle]

It's just part of the craziness of this game. I have a scary galloping, both pieces of equipment figured out type that can't break a maiden to save it's life. She is perennially in second place. Then there are the wings/great gallopers that far exceed my expectations. As you already know, you just don't know what kind of racer they will be until they actually compete.

[Kris Krueger]

I'm beginning to wonder if there isn't a high and low end to every rating such gallops and bloodstock comments. I'm starting to adopt the policy of dumping anything that hasn't lived up to its rating early on in it's career and just cutting my losses rather than keep being frustrated. The menace in my barn is 3 horses that were wows who ran well for the first 6 or 7 races and then hit a wall and absolute quit running. Placing at the bottom.... Not over racing, not putting them in over their heads, not frequent long distance ships. Doing everything right as far as I know. I'm happy as long as my horses are placing and don't expect consistent wins, but geez' do they have to drop dead on me!

[Nena Olson]

Ah yes, the wonderfully depressing world of horses who gallop awesome and then fail to live up to their comment. I have many, many of those. I have also learned that a scary in mixers isn't as rare as the TB world so I treat them just as wows. I don't know about trotters but I treat my wow pacers as wings because the chances of them even being stakes caliber is very small.

Trust me, I want to quit every other day (aka Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays) because I feel that at least one of my wows should be stakes quality, but sadly, none are. My barn makes me so angry! I even GPed all my HTT horses yet my horses can barely win allowance races. I had 28 wows in my 2yo crop and none of them, so far, have shown any stakes potential. I had a wow 2yo turf router entered on Monday and she finished 6th. I have a wow turf miler 2yo filly, who has worked 46.8 a few times, who is still a maiden. I won't even talk about my 2yo wow dirt sprinters because they just royally peeve me off. One of them JUST broke their maiden race, and will probably take forever to get her 2nd win. I understand the frustration! Trust me. I somehow haven't found the "stash" of horse "drugs" that seem to boost them to better runners yet. There is also this supposedly mystical thing that happens where htt/wing horses become wows/scaries, but I have yet to see it in my 7 RL SIM years, so I have no idea what I have to do to get one of those things lol. I have bred two scary Thoroughbreds in my SIM career and both of them were out of formidable mares, so I honestly don't even know the difference between star broodmares & formidable. My formidable mares are 10 x better than my star broodmares!

I guess I should mention that all my current stakes winners are 4yo+ right now, with three 3yos out of 88. So I do have a very small amount of horses supporting the rest but, not anything that is really exciting.

Trust me, I feel your frustration and I am right in the same boat you are. Ugh, now I'm all mad again... I better go consume some chocolate before I GP everything haha

[Steph Lonhro]

I have a few points for this thread

I have been racing trotters since they started and they can like any of the mixers be frustrating, one thing I suggest is to keep the expectations level, don't expect this horse to be the one to carry your stable until they can show they can do it. Stormy your horse is very nice, it isn't as if he lost by a lot, in fact if I was the owner i would not be as disappointed in that effort, seeing as I have had wows and such finish 12th with a 75 speed fig, now that is frustrating. My other main point is mixers are not like thoroughbreds they don't have 500 continents we can spread them about and to race scaries in different areas, for trotters we have what now 5 tracks. In that race alone mentioned above we could literally have had a lot of those horses be scaries and the ones who were 1st and 2nd were not slouches, in fact they could very well be scaries too.

as for workouts, sure it is nice to see fast workouts, but I try and see how the horses have raced if they have had a race to see how I potentially stack up against that horse, and even that is not a tell tale sign, cause we never know how the race will set up when they are in that race. I have 2, 2 yr old trotter scaries and both were like opposites on the work tab and yet they both have raced pretty much the same speed fig examples: lucky show worked from 154.40 to 154.69, mostly around the latter, and will be shining was 154.32 to 154.61

as for the extra training it is very rare I use it, the only horse i have used it on was king of kindness walking the shedrow since he recovered more slowly then a turtle walking a mile, I for one don`t feel it helps, I think they are just extra buttons we as trainers can use, as it is the only thing i do now is gallop to find the 2nd piece and give them there works and when they race no extra training at all

so to recap what I said

expectations keep level
smaller number of tracks you will be facing potentially multiple scaries in races, especially in stakes
don`t just use workout times in thinking oh I can beat that horse, it matters more how they race once they hit the track, this also is a tie in to keeping expectations level

mixers may frustrate me but I have loved majority of my trotters and maybe that had to do with owning Money Honey

[Angus Clab]

Orbit is just a wow and got lucky with that win. But, like others in this thread I also have a bunch of scaries that are perpetual losers. It just kinda is what it is. And then there are the ones that are decent and only have stakes races to enter when they are just allowance class horses.

I think most of us have our mixed breed peeve...but that being said they are still fun.

[Juli Stettler]

I've accepted the fact that most times I love to hate my mixers. Seriously they are so frustrating.