Thoughts on tweaks to mixer claimers

[Tammy Stawicki]

I was debating upon posting this in one small thing or here, but decided to go with here as I wanted to hear other people's thoughts. I can always migrate a consensus opinion (if there is one) to one small thing.

We all know I love me some mixer claimers and think they have been an absolute godsend to mixers allowing horses of multiple gallop levels to find a home where they can make some money. However, lately I have been thinking some tweaks could be made to help things out.

1. I would love to see more maiden claimers for older horses. Cimmarron has a complete set of maiden claimers every week for the 2yos but Odessa doesn't have any. So once maiden mixers reach 3 there only claiming options in maiden company are a sporadic few races at Mixed Up Downs. I know I have maiden claimers that are picking up checks in the low level races so I want to keep racing them but I hate having to move them to open company. Admittedly they seem to be competitive in the 3k open races but I imagine they would be even more competitive if they could stay in maiden company, and maybe they would even win. I don't think the maidens are needed at all levels (if your horse is still a maiden at 4 should you really be running it in an 80k claimer), but I would love to see some at the lower levels.

2. This is the one I could imagine potentially being controversial but I'd like to see purses adjusted for claiming value. Right now there isn't a huge claiming market for geldings particularly at the higher tags. I don't see my geldings getting claimed at $45 or $80k even $16 is rare so it makes no real difference what tag I run them for and I am pretty sure I rarely run geldings at 80 for that reason. If they could make more money at 80 I'd be more inclined to run the better horses there. And I think you'd see better stratification with better horses running at higher tags. Also while I love that I can make some nice money with my mixer claimers it seems problematic that $3k claimers have higher purses than a lot of allowance races out there.

So what do other people think? Is everything fine and am I just looking for things to complain about? Are my ideas horrible? Or is there a general consensus in the community that some of these tweaks would be helpful.Would love to have a constructive conversation about the state of mixer races.

[Dave Trainer]

I think the purses need adjusting. To have the same purse for 3k claimers as 80k claimers and allowances is odd.

But that opens up the same argument in other areas. Some Allowances are worth more than some graded stakes races and a lot of listed stakes.

I think the whole purse structure needs looking at.

[Laura Smith]

1. I would love to see more maiden claimers for older horses. Cimmarron has a complete set of maiden claimers every week for the 2yos but Odessa doesn't have any. So once maiden mixers reach 3 there only claiming options in maiden company are a sporadic few races at Mixed Up Downs. I know I have maiden claimers that are picking up checks in the low level races so I want to keep racing them but I hate having to move them to open company. Admittedly they seem to be competitive in the 3k open races but I imagine they would be even more competitive if they could stay in maiden company, and maybe they would even win. I don't think the maidens are needed at all levels (if your horse is still a maiden at 4 should you really be running it in an 80k claimer), but I would love to see some at the lower levels.

Yep for sure. I think there used to be maiden claimers for 3YOs but they seem to have full on disappeared.

2. This is the one I could imagine potentially being controversial but I'd like to see purses adjusted for claiming value. Right now there isn't a huge claiming market for geldings particularly at the higher tags. I don't see my geldings getting claimed at $45 or $80k even $16 is rare so it makes no real difference what tag I run them for and I am pretty sure I rarely run geldings at 80 for that reason. If they could make more money at 80 I'd be more inclined to run the better horses there. And I think you'd see better stratification with better horses running at higher tags. Also while I love that I can make some nice money with my mixer claimers it seems problematic that $3k claimers have higher purses than a lot of allowance races out there.

One hundred percent.
As Dave said, though, it's a little messy in general, purse-wise.

What if we got rid of the variations between races for mixers (I know it makes it less interesting, but personally I don't really care about shopping around for a $12k vs. $10k purse at a different track?) and just did a standard purse structure?

Claiming ≤ $5k: 6k purse
Claiming $6-10k: $7.5k purse
Claiming $11-25k: $10k purse
Claiming $26-45k: $12k purse
Claiming $46k+: $15k purse
NWx: $15k purse
Open allowance: $17.5k purse

Seems reasonable ish to me?

[Tom Lin]

What if we got rid of the variations between races for mixers (I know it makes it less interesting, but personally I don't really care about shopping around for a $12k vs. $10k purse at a different track?) and just did a standard purse structure?

Claiming ≤ $5k: 6k purse
Claiming $6-10k: $7.5k purse
Claiming $11-25k: $10k purse
Claiming $26-45k: $12k purse
Claiming $46k+: $15k purse
NWx: $15k purse
Open allowance: $17.5k purse

Seems reasonable ish to me?

It does make sense but claiming trainers won't like it. I was afraid some of the purses would be adjusted down and low level claimers would be racing for Alaska type purses. With the higher purses it creates a lot of claiming activity, especially at the lowest level. A great way for a new player to give their bankroll a boost. Claim a horse for $3K, race him back for $3K, hopefully win, get claimed, nice profit.

[Jo Ferris]

Love both ideas, I'd also love to see even lower tags, nobody claims the horses to begin with, would be nice to have lower tags

[Alleyne Torres]

I think the problem (historically) with older maiden claiming races is that races that don't fill a full card are automatically removed from the race roster when the year turns over. So that is why they seem to disappear.

[Tammy Stawicki]

What if we got rid of the variations between races for mixers (I know it makes it less interesting, but personally I don't really care about shopping around for a $12k vs. $10k purse at a different track?) and just did a standard purse structure?

Claiming ≤ $5k: 6k purse
Claiming $6-10k: $7.5k purse
Claiming $11-25k: $10k purse
Claiming $26-45k: $12k purse
Claiming $46k+: $15k purse
NWx: $15k purse
Open allowance: $17.5k purse

Seems reasonable ish to me?

It does make sense but claiming trainers won't like it. I was afraid some of the purses would be adjusted down and low level claimers would be racing for Alaska type purses. With the higher purses it creates a lot of claiming activity, especially at the lowest level. A great way for a new player to give their bankroll a boost. Claim a horse for $3K, race him back for $3K, hopefully win, get claimed, nice profit.

I like Laura's idea but also see Tom's point. I certainly appreciate the money that can be made in claimers these days. And it helps encourage students to actually race those horses, and like Tom said can be an easy moneymaker for newer players as more established players will essentially give away lower gallopers. Case in point Danaan here is a solid galloper who has yet to break his maiden in 10 starts but has managed to rack up close to $16,000 in earnings in his first two seasons in those low level claimers. Meanwhile allowance galloper Dacron here who I would rather not have claimed away from me so has been staying in allowances and has yet to break $10,000.

Love both ideas, I'd also love to see even lower tags, nobody claims the horses to begin with, would be nice to have lower tags

Did some quick digging on this point looking at the history of my own horses. My feel before looking at the numbers was I will have fillies claimed from me at a range of tags and the higher tags make sense there, but geldings are only claimed at the lower levels and the higher tags seem unnecessary. Data showed a different story. It seems last year I had very few horses claimed from me and only in real low value races. I have cut back my fillies in claimers but still have tons of geldings (indeed I remember not having enough races for them all). However, in past years I was seeing more claiming at a range of values for both geldings and fillies. Admittedly this is such a small sample size it is hard to tell whether we truly are seeing a decline in claiming or it is just an anomaly. Here are my actual numbers:

Y52
2.5k gelding
3k gelding x3
32k filly

Y51
2.5k gelding x2
3k gelding
16k filly

Y50
2.5k filly
2.5k gelding x2
3k gelding x2
16k filly x2
16k gelding x2
32k filly
32k gelding

I think the problem (historically) with older maiden claiming races is that races that don't fill a full card are automatically removed from the race roster when the year turns over. So that is why they seem to disappear.

I did some research on this using the awesome ability to now search for races by year. It seems that there have been at least 40 maiden claimers for all 3yo paints ran at Mixed Up Downs going back to Y39. There were more some years but at a quick glance, a lot of those seemed to have been sponsored. I never saw any at Odessa. So I think there are races and they have stuck around its just that I'm so used to camping my horses at Odessa as I can count on races every week I don't fully utilize the Mixed Up ones. Also back to the purse issue the Mixed Up Downs races have only a $10k purse instead of $15k.

[J.r. Lewis]

1. I would love to see more maiden claimers for older horses. Cimmarron has a complete set of maiden claimers every week for the 2yos but Odessa doesn't have any. So once maiden mixers reach 3 there only claiming options in maiden company are a sporadic few races at Mixed Up Downs. I know I have maiden claimers that are picking up checks in the low level races so I want to keep racing them but I hate having to move them to open company. Admittedly they seem to be competitive in the 3k open races but I imagine they would be even more competitive if they could stay in maiden company, and maybe they would even win. I don't think the maidens are needed at all levels (if your horse is still a maiden at 4 should you really be running it in an 80k claimer), but I would love to see some at the lower levels.

2. This is the one I could imagine potentially being controversial but I'd like to see purses adjusted for claiming value. Right now there isn't a huge claiming market for geldings particularly at the higher tags. I don't see my geldings getting claimed at $45 or $80k even $16 is rare so it makes no real difference what tag I run them for and I am pretty sure I rarely run geldings at 80 for that reason. If they could make more money at 80 I'd be more inclined to run the better horses there. And I think you'd see better stratification with better horses running at higher tags. Also while I love that I can make some nice money with my mixer claimers it seems problematic that $3k claimers have higher purses than a lot of allowance races out there.

So what do other people think? Is everything fine and am I just looking for things to complain about? Are my ideas horrible? Or is there a general consensus in the community that some of these tweaks would be helpful.Would love to have a constructive conversation about the state of mixer races.

1. I would agree that it stinks not having low level maiden claimers past 2yo. If it's a 3k type, it's off to greener pastures once it turns 3. If it's a bit better though, there are quite a few mid level maiden claimers. I just looked for 3yo appy geldings and there's 1 for each distance in the first 2 weeks ranging from $5-8k. Looking at Y52, there were a total of 24. There are another 17 for 3yo+ and 9 for 4yo+ for a grand total of 50. Now, if you have a lot of these types, you're gonna run out of space for them quick but otherwise I think you should be fine. As more information is always valuable, those 24 races for 3yos had 161 total entries for an average of 6.7 per race so that's telling me there isn't a very big market for 3yo mid-level maidens. I'm guessing low level maidens would take some away from the mid levels, add them to the ones we're sending to greener pastures, and it would probably end up back in that 5-6 horses per race range.

2. I think this really goes to what you're looking to get out of your geldings. I think most people are happy to have them claimed for $3-16k just to get them out of their barn which further explains why nobody is claiming them for $45-80k. If I have a horse that can win at $80k, that's where I'd run it. If it can't win, it gets dropped down, regardless of the purse size.

I hadn't looked at a breakdown of my claiming from last season until this post but I had 522 horses claimed from me with 268 being mixers. Only slightly higher than the TBs but to Tom's point, they cost more but have a better chance of making their money back as they're not running in $500 claimers with $5k purses.

Personally, if there is a change to any of the claimers, I'd hope for it to be higher tags for 2yos. I have stakes, and even some freak, horses that are earning less than my productives because I don't want to run them for a $32k tag so they go through the grind against all the freaks on the ladder who are there because there's only 1 or 2 stakes races per week for an entire division. So higher tags for 2yos and more stakes races get my vote

[Laura Smith]

It does make sense but claiming trainers won't like it. I was afraid some of the purses would be adjusted down and low level claimers would be racing for Alaska type purses. With the higher purses it creates a lot of claiming activity, especially at the lowest level. A great way for a new player to give their bankroll a boost. Claim a horse for $3K, race him back for $3K, hopefully win, get claimed, nice profit.

This is true, and I race a lot at the lowest levels so I definitely benefit from those fat purses for $3k horses But it's also true that it makes no sense for a $3k claimer to have the same purse value as an $80k claimer, and even less sense for that purse to be higher than the purses for most open allowance races. And it would be silly to raise the purse of an open allowance past $25k or $30k when the majority of stakes races are for $50k purses, which in many divisions draw the very best horses simply because there are no other races to run in. So the only thing to do if we want to even things out, in my opinion, is adjust the lower claimers down. Maybe not as much as I initially said -- if <$25k tags ran for $10k purses that would be fine, too.

Personally, if there is a change to any of the claimers, I'd hope for it to be higher tags for 2yos. I have stakes, and even some freak, horses that are earning less than my productives because I don't want to run them for a $32k tag so they go through the grind against all the freaks on the ladder who are there because there's only 1 or 2 stakes races per week for an entire division. So higher tags for 2yos and more stakes races get my vote

YES! I have piles of 2YOs worth more than $32k but who aren't good enough to compete in open company.

[Randall Allen]

I would love cheap $500 tag races for my mixer nags. I throw productive geldings into the 3k races and they struggle to win. The jump from 16k to 45k also seems a little steep. At 45-80k no one is interested in claiming much of anything, so the difference between those two is negligible.

Btw...the Alaska tag purse amounts are a joke, at 5k why even bother most times. I hope the purse amounts aren't adjusted down that much.

[Laura Smith]

I would love cheap $500 tag races for my mixer nags. I throw productive geldings into the 3k races and they struggle to win. The jump from 16k to 45k also seems a little steep. At 45-80k no one is interested in claiming much of anything, so the difference between those two is negligible.

Btw...the Alaska tag purse amounts are a joke, at 5k why even bother most times. I hope the purse amounts aren't adjusted down that much.

But what should $500 horses run for, then? If horses worth ten or twenty times that much run for $15k allowance purses?

[Tammy Stawicki]

I would love cheap $500 tag races for my mixer nags. I throw productive geldings into the 3k races and they struggle to win. The jump from 16k to 45k also seems a little steep. At 45-80k no one is interested in claiming much of anything, so the difference between those two is negligible.

Btw...the Alaska tag purse amounts are a joke, at 5k why even bother most times. I hope the purse amounts aren't adjusted down that much.

But what should $500 horses run for, then? If horses worth ten or twenty times that much run for $15k allowance purses?

Or 10k allowance purses...

[Lee Tuttle]

No purse should be below 10k.
Those Alaskan 500 to 1k races are mostly about trading dog food.



I'd suggest stakes as they are:
50k purse

Kick allowances up to:
25k purse

Claiming races 45k and above:
20k purse

Claiming races 16-44k
15k purse

Claiming races below 15k
10k purse

Then again I have a good amount of fun playing the mixer claim game as it is.

[Dave Trainer]

Why shouldn't there be purses below 10k?

Rubbish horses should run for peanuts. That is what happens in rl.

Em has asked for suggestions to remove money from the game. Increasing purses for low grade horses isn't the answer.

[Lee Tuttle]

Why shouldn't there be purses below 10k?

Rubbish horses should run for peanuts. That is what happens in rl.

Em has asked for suggestions to remove money from the game. Increasing purses for low grade horses isn't the answer.

Purses for 3k and 2.5k claimers are currently 15,000.
Pretty sure I didn't suggest to increase that.

Now that we are being encouraged to keep our rubbish before age 5, there is going to be a higher demand for those alaskan rubbish claimers.
It'd be good if that rubbish was able to pay its own way if we are stuck with it.
so I suggested a bit of modification to the purses, especially the bottom end. 15k purse for a rubbish mixer while a rubbish thoro has a 5-10k purse currently. 10k would be more of a fair balance between the two.


She wants to take more money out?


#1. Introduce caps on the total amount a stable can hold. 25 mill, 50 mill, 100 mill, whatever tickles her fancy. Anything above that cap goes away. Why would this be a problem to anyone with such a balance when those people believe its a free game and that it's ethical for the owner to have special relationships with certain players allowing them to have special horses.

#2. Flat tax at the end of each season removing the same percentage of cash from all stables.

#3. If there is a need for increased funding for the game, raise the cost of the simperior membership to balance that need. Only make that adjustment in between seasons so players know what the costs are going to be at the beginning of each season.


I'd say 1 and 2 is a simple way to take care of the "need to remove cash from the game". And #3 is the most direct and honest way to make sure there are enough funds to keep the game going.