"What I Did in Year 29" Thread

[Regina Moore]

I can't ever be content to reduce my experience of the racing year to just a few sentences or stats. So, for the already-incredibly-bored and the voyeuristic, I present my annual year in review.

And assume others will share their peak accomplishments/disappointments in whatever manner they choose.

[Carolyn Eaton]

It was pretty much a banner year for Tosca Texas - my highest number of stakes win ever - 33 (which I'm especially proud since I ran my second fewest number of races in a year ever - 356); I had my highest win % - 26.4% (over 1/2 the year it was above 30%, then oh well); my highest single year earnings with $4,991,120 and highest in breeder bonuses - $487,350.

I have a lot of awesome runners not retiring, and a solid group of 2yo's coming up - It'll be difficult, but could year 30 be even better? Time will tell!

[Carter Taylor]

Well, lets see..............

Had 1 stakes win, which matches my previous best and officially doubles my lifetime total. On the plus side of that, it was a homebred. Had my highest earnings and breeder awards, but overall stats were down. I do think that I am a bit behind where I expected to be, but the slow improvement may be keeping my interest more than if I had come on like a ball of fire.

Makes me feel like there are better days ahead when I see how others are doing well.

[Paul Heinrich]

Regina, I agree with Em, I've long admired the way you play and perceive the game. I look at this game as a sort of alternate universe we all help put together - and you certainly do your part.

My own year 29 was definitely a 'slump' year. I knew it was coming, since I retired 3 millionaires last year (Give No Ground, In Black and White, and Winning the Battle), along with a Steward's Cup winner (Shelby Mustang) and 2 other graded stakes winners with earnings over 300k (Nova and Wildcat Blue). I was hoping to have horses step up to take their place, but I only had 2 reliable stakes winning thoroughbreds this year (Silent Planet, and Eliza's Superstar) - so it should not be surprising that my total stakes wins fell to 27 (from 38) and my total earnings fell to 4.8m (from 6.8m).

My last 3 classes to hit the track (this year's 4, 3, and 2yos) have simply been disappointing, compared to the classes I was getting the previous 4 seasons (now 5-8yos). I don't have a good answer for why, but I suspect part of it is simply a large uptick in the amount of competition for essentially the same number of stakes races, due to SIM growth in number of engaged trainers (which is a positive), and fake horse overpopulation (which I see as a negative). Of course, it's also possible that I'm just breeding worse now than I was a few years ago. It's also possible that the magic random-slide wand has just not been as kind.

This year's 2yo class does have some potential at the top, with Chutai and Best of the Future - but as with recent classes, once you get past those two, I've got a lot of well-bred claimers.

Anyway, I'll be doing my first ever serious attempt at a broodmare cull early next season, in an effort to jumpstart my fake horse training career, and also my overall game experience. Definitely looking forward to SIM 4.5!

[Karl Smythe]

Regina,
Just wanted to say a "Big Congrats" to you on your award. Well deserved. I really enjoyed your Sim Review for Year 29.

My year was fun as I helped other Trainers to continue while they were busy and did well with my own barn.
This season I tied for my highest win %, took over my highest OTB %, most 2 year old winners, maiden winners and breeders awards.
I had many highlights that I enjoyed and as usual will find many more to keep my Sim experience going

[Chris Everett]

My year was a step up from the previous. A few more stakes wins, a few more maiden wins and a few more 2 yr old wins. The odd 'fight' with my Bad Traffic vs his half sister had a suprising entry of Chryosphere but its all good. I know I have one of the best AW milers colts besides his half brother. I was pondering a dirt race for Traffic to see if he can cross over but nixed it for now. Who knows...
Now what surprised me was my aw sprinter filly Callahan, a 4th in SC sprint was awesome to me and now she's got a Seraph baby whom I hope is more tractable than her dam.
Bigest surprise and yet the one i counted on was my paint filly winning the 2yr old SC Debatunt.
I have hope for the future and that is all I want. Its progress and makes me happy to know that its there. I have a few up and comming youngsters to look forewards to. My last TBS purchase who turned out to be a wow, my pacer filly who while works slow, is also a wow. In the QH races, I sold a wow filly who's name was changed, I look forewards to seeing her under breeder awards. And finally my poor Appy Anna... she's got to face up to Kya's appy filly and that should be intresting for the both of us i think.
Congrats Regina, you deserve it.

[Friedrich Barbarossa]

1. Won less often.
2. Won fewer stakes races.
3. Entered a horse in an SC race for the last time.
4. Machine gunned 20-30 broodmares I didn't like anymore.

Kidding on some of that....

[Peter Gleason]

It was also the best year I had, and that was probably due to me not even entering for half of the year!

In any case, I had my best win% (25.1), best otb% (66.7), most stakes wins (59), most breeders awards (906k) and my highest earnings ever with 9.3mil. Only wins were down from last year, but I did run 300 less so the fact that I could get within 9 wins of last year's 238 was a tremendous effort from my horses! There are 3 horses in particular who made this year awesome:

Sky Flyer (Greenspan) was the banner horse in my stable this year. Her year involved wins in the Louisville Oaks and Fading Star Stakes (both grade 1) and places in the SC Distaff, Midsummer Oaks and Long Island Acorn. It took me probably until week 14 to beleive she was actually good, and even now I have lingering doubts (since the Distaff field was pretty ordinary).

This Fire (July) had an intentionally easy start to her career, and didn't even start in a stakes race until week 5 of her 3yo year, which is probably pretty odd for a sub-59 worker. She had an amazing undefeated year in Asia, winning the HK Distaff, Queens Cup, Japanese Derby (all grade 1) as well as the graded Japanese 2000 Guineas and Mt. Fuji Turf Cup. Although the fields she met weren't all that, she always ran against males or older fillies and always won by open lengths, which is a sign of a great horse. Special mention to Jon Smythe with this horse - he sent me a message to switch to the Derby the day before races were run since it was a weaker field, which was an awesome change of tactics.

Sweet Disposition (Inspired Doxa) probably should have been running in more intense races, but she won 5 stakes races and her year culminated with a 3rd in the female dirt sprint. She finished the year with earnings of just over 500k. I was pretty sick of the song when I named her, but now I love it. Same with This Fire too

Thanks to Jon Smythe and Laura Cameron for helping me out through the year!

[Ronda Figal]

Lets see

I had my highest win percentage in the 19 seasons i've been playing...
My 6th lowest year in earnings...
My second lowest earnings in Breeder's Awards...
Only one stakes win and one 2 year old win....
My highest OTB placings of my carrer...

Ronda

[Juli Stettler]

Had a very good year this year, broke a million in earnings for the 1st time. Mostly have cheap horses with a few promising ones here and there so it was a good year for us.

Next year is looking pretty good for us, got what we think is a VERY nice QH yearling.

[Corey Lange]

3rd highest earnings in 6 full years playing
2nd lowest winning percentage
Highest Breeder's Awards in expanding home-bred program
7 stakes wins and possibly my first great broodmare retired
4th highest OTB

[Steph Lonhro]

was a okay year, improved once my milers started but overall wasn't a happy year which is fine, I know I am going to get into slumps here and there

the positives:
the 8th straight year with more then 50 wins in a season I had 61
my otb got to 60 %
I found replacements for my top horses who retired in yr 28

the thing i need to work on is horse placement is about the one i want to focus on for next season, that and getting my stable size smaller

[Emily Klein]

This year was much better than last year. My win % wasn't too bad at 15% (last year it was only 10%) and my OTB % was 37.9%. I had my top number of maiden wins ever at 15 and tied my record of 2yo wins at 8. I also had my highest number of wins in one year (36) while reaching 205 lifetime wins.

[Sarah Chase]

1. Had worst win percentage since Year 20.
2. Had worst OTB percentage since Year 18.
3. Had lowest number of stakes wins since Year 20.
4. Had smallest amount of breeder awards since the beginning of time/when SIM started tracking breeder awards
5. Despite this, somehow made my way into the Hall of Fame as a "top trainer"
6. Had the joy and privilege of training a mare as great as Sparkle Factor

One good one makes it all better, folks! Kinda. I still shudder when I look at my stats for this year...

[Kris Bobby]

Regina,

I am not really overly-bored, but I really enjoyed reading your year in review. Congratulations on your Award of Merit, I am certain it is well-deserved and as nice a compliment from The Steward as one can get. I hope you have an even better Year 30!

In a very small nutshell: I had quite a few underachievers. Horses that based on gallops and works should have won considerably more races. On a positive note: I retired my first ever Steward Bred to stud and am proud of his accomplishments. I also stand another stud (thanks to Jon Smythe) who I hope will prove to be successful. I have a few soon-to-be 2 yos that should be promising.

Best of luck to all--RB