On Managing Stable Rest

[Lily Wilkins]

Okay experts, I have a question!! How do you manage your horse's home locations? I'm not talking about the Black-types in your barn whose every move is thoughtfully planned out, I am talking about the claimers and low level allowance horses who from start to start might be traveling to different tracks to go where the races that fit their needs are.
For instance, I have noticed that many of my TB claimers don't just sit in Alaska... There might be a week where Alaska has no claiming races for the distance/surface/price I want, but there IS one down in California (for example). I don't want to blow my horses out by over shipping them; so I don't exactly want that claimer shipping ALL the way back to Alaska after that start in California, you know? Are you guys just really good about looking ahead two weeks and planning this out for every horse? Seems a little time consuming - especially if you have a huge stable.

I guess I'm just really having issues figuring out how to manage these horses so that i'm not just parking them at whatever track they ran at last between races. I know I won't get good results if I'm doing that, plus it's costs more in board.

[LA Pepper]

I farm the horses to the nearest farm where they race. I really don't believe it makes any difference if they ship 2,4,6 hours to their next race. I usually can find an appropriate race within a reasonable distance. And if not, an occasional long distance ship doesn't seem to make a difference either as long as its not done often. IMHO.

[Ash Tarasin]

I ship them anywhere they need to go. If it's a 20+ hour-ish ship I prefer to have them rested three weeks before they go. I try not to race them more than two times in a row on a two-weeks-schedule for that reason (sometimes travelling far). I have very little respect for long travels. As long as you don't do it over and over and over again on a 2-weeks-schedule without cheerful goats to keep them company they're fine.

[Andrew James]

I do my best to ship horses to where they are going to race next right after their latest race. I definitely find they don't run their best when doing a long ship just 3 days before the race.

Having said that it is really tough to do with claimers of a certain level (11k-49k) in particular as those races tend to be all over North America. To a lesser extent true with 50k+ claimers as well. Over time I've started to figure out where races are for certain divisions but thats just time and repitition.

And I should add I have no hard and fast rules. If I see a stakes race with 2 horses entered 2 days before post and I have a horse who could be competitive I'll ship them from one side of the earth to the other for a chance to win a stakes race.

[Ash Tarasin]

I wished to show you an example so you don't think I'm making things up.
https://www.simhorseracing.com/horse.php?HorseID=959593
This horse has been raced along the same lines as the allowance/claimers you mention since I don't make up my decision of where she'll go until three days before raceday. She's sound and she's got a goat companion since I want a little more wiggle room, but as you can see she's been travelling three days prior to raceday her entire life and more or less all over the world. Only wishing to illustrate that it's well possible. No self-proclaimed expert as your initial text seemed to call for , but I've been racing my 2nd and 3rd tier stakes horses (competition matters a tad more than 1st tier horses) like this for years. Bottom line being I wouldn't think twice about sending a horse from Alaska to California and back. For allowances and claimers shipping cost will be more limiting than shipping distance since you want more purse money to be convinced to ship far.

[Dan Gordon]

Here is something I've always wondered. Is the rest an incremental improvement or is it all at once (either fully rested or not). In other words, I try to ship immediately after the races. If I waited a day or two, would that be the difference between winning a photo and losing a photo? Or if not overused, is the horse fully rested and you can't get MORE fully rested?

[Regina Moore]

From my study of the vet comments many SIM years ago (in other words, if you vet a horse 20 times at once, there's certain comments that all mean the same thing), I came up with these levels of rest:

LEVEL 1 – Tired
This horse is tired today, you might want to make sure He rests for a couple of days.
I wouldn't give this horse another workout too soon, okay?
This horse will be tired for the next few days, okay?
This horse must have just had some exercise, a race or a workout maybe?
This horse should be at it's peak in about five or six days if you don't push it too hard this week
I wouldn't recommend another race too soon with this horse.
Take it easy with this horse this week, okay?
I wouldn't push this horse much harder right now.
You might want to take it easy with this horse for a few days now.
This horse could use a short rest, you know?
Time for a quick break for this horse, if you can.
You can ask me again in a few days, but right now this horse needs a rest

LEVEL 2 – Recovering
This horse can run in a few days but I don't think it's at its peak, you know?
This horse should run well but I'd expect a tired horse after the race.
This horse should be okay, but if the race were today, it won't run the best race of its career, okay?
I'd avoid too much shipping with this horse right now, it seems kind of tired.
This horse seems a little sluggish to me.

LEVEL 3 – Almost Recovered
I'd go one more day without exercise, but this horse should be okay tomorrow. Maybe a walk around the shedrow might help?
This horse should be fine tomorrow, check back with me then if you'd like.

LEVEL 4 – Rested
If you aren't planning on racing any time soon you might want to give this horse a little bit of exercise elsewhere.
This horse isn't even tired!
Look how dappled and happy this horse looks! You're good to go!
You've got yourself a sharp horse here!
This horse is at its peak, it would seem, energy wise, so go ahead and race it!
It's the perfect time for a race or some other exercise!
This horse isn't even a little bit tired.
This horse is ready to race!


However, for Level 1, there seems to be two tiers to that. For a super tired horse (such as a day or two after a race), if you go to train the horse, Mary Weather warns you to "be careful not to overwork or race [horse] too much." Once that comment goes away, one will still get Level 1 vet comments for another day or two or three. (Surely, soundness level affects how long.)

What I found is that when horse A takes a longer time to recover than horse B, horse A spent those extra days getting Level 1 vet comments. Once a horse moves to Level 2 after a race, the length of recovery seemed to be pretty much the same for all horses. It's important to note that I did this study before we had soundness, and before we could see fitness.

Recently, Em has said that there's not such thing as "extra rested". A horse is either rested or it isn't; I'm assuming she meant "is either fully rested or it isn't". In other words (by my interpretation), once a horse is getting Level 4 vet comments, it's at the same level of rest as a horse that's been getting Level 4 vet comments for two weeks. The difference would be the the latter horse might be getting unfit, if he's just been sitting around and not getting any exercise.

It's important to note that these levels are my own terminology, developed from vetting various horses over and over on the same day and subsequent days, to pin down how horses recover from tiredness. It's always possible I could be wrong about the whole thing!

To see the whole series I wrote, see the group of articles that were written 5+ years ago: https://www.simhorseracing.com/featurer ... pleID=5100

[Dan Gordon]

Wow. Regina Moore - SIM legend! Seriously.

[Ronnie Dee]

---
However, for Level 1, there seems to be two tiers to that. For a super tired horse (such as a day or two after a race), if you go to train the horse, Mary Weather warns you to "be careful not to overwork or race [horse] too much." Once that comment goes away, one will still get Level 1 vet comments for another day or two or three. (Surely, soundness level affects how long.)
---

I have noticed that Mary Weather's "careful" comment is correlated with soundness. That is, after a race, the more sound a horse is, the sooner the "careful" comment stops being displayed and is replaced by the "choose what you want" comment. Of course, if the horse has a companion animal, the "careful" comment disappears sooner.

For very sound horses, the "careful" comment disappears in about a couple of days. For very unsound horses (without a companion animal), it takes considerably longer for the "careful " comment to be replaced.

[Regina Moore]

I have noticed that Mary Weather's "careful" comment is correlated with soundness.

That doesn't surprise me, since my observation was that horses that needed more rest than others after a race spent those extra days at Level 1. This is why I'm a big believer in having a horse fully rested after a race, exercise, or ship before doing anything further with it. The one exception is that I'll ship a horse to a nearby farm immediately after a race, since horses rest faster at farms.

As a side note, when asked specifically on one of Scott Eiland's audio cast about how to handle a horse with a long ship to its next race, Em said she would ship that horse immediately after its last race to a farm near the track for its next race. I actually disagree with this! Because you're taking a horse that has just done the most exhausting thing in the game -- run a race -- and putting a long tiring ship on top of it. I wait for the horse to be fully rested after its last race and then might ship it a day or two earlier than I normally would to its next race if it's a really long ship. Still, I think players angst too much over long ships (which I define as one continent to another), if a long ship is just a once in a while thing.

As a second side note, I have had horses win races that are at Level 2-Recovering on race day. I've also never had a horse injured at Level 2. I don't like racing horse that are at Level 2 (and usually just do it for fillers in small fields), since such a horse is now going to need all the longer rest after the race, because now its likely going to be at a vulnerable Level 1 stage for a lot longer time than normal. So, I pretty much always give such horse a full three weeks before its next race.