Minimum Stud Fees

[Lisa Bennert]

I really hope that this will be looked at sometime through the year (I fully understand that The Steward can't Always react and real life is more important). But eventually I would love to at least hear some Kind of Statement as to why These particular changes were made, because unlike with foal Limits for example I really can't see how this is doing any good to anyone.

[Laura Smith]

I've benefited from the GP sired stakes purses before, but I think it's easy to see that they were a little silly and out of line with other purses, especially in the divisions (most of them) where GP sires are simply not as good as non-GP options. I could count on one hand the runnings I've seen of those GP-sired stakes that have actually been competitive and contained one or more legit stakes quality horses, whereas I've seen countless runnings of them won with like a 79 by a horse who goes straight back to claiming company or never wins again. I like making money just like all the rest of you, but I think those races being $150-$200k was always a bit wacky.

I'm sure things will even out in a couple of years as the rest of the adjustments are rolled out. Hey, my maidens are making fat stacks right now, so not complaining about that, that's for sure.

[Laura Smith]

Hey, my maidens are making fat stacks right now, so not complaining about that, that's for sure.

Although... hahaha... I do kind of miss the purse variances between (and even within) circuits. I used to shop around in Cyprus or Russia or Uruguay or whatever for cheap, light maiden races for horses who were a little under par, but who I didn't want to lose to a claimer just yet. Not many people bothered to ship nice horses 6,000 miles for a shot at a $10k purse, so it was easier to squeeze that win out of a productive or whatever. Now that they're all $25k, I think it takes some of the strategy out of entering, especially 2YOs. Just a thought.

[Tammy Stawicki]

I’ve been told by quite a few people that money is in mixers (just not *my* mixers lol), but it was my understanding that it was mostly by way of low tag claimers, were the claimer purses cut?

I definitely think you can still make money in mixers. Best I can tell none of the nonstakes races were cut and some were raised. Taking a quick look at my barn I have a 5yo with $60,000+ in earnings pretty much all coming from claimers and a 4yo with $50,000+. Mixers are just this weird situation where with the exception of the top top horses it seems easier to make money in claimers than anywhere else because you have a lot of claiming races with relatively high purses offered each week.

[Jo Ferris]

My feeling was the purse cuts were to deal with all the excess money in the game, but is that money really coming from mixers?

I realize there is only so much time in the day but I would love some thought being put into the mixer stallion situation. I only race paint sprinters and middle distance so I don't know how broad these issues are but I really feel with the exception of Hey Brother playerbred horses are just not able to compete with the game created stallions. And I try to diversify my breeding but its hard to keep going back to a stallion when I'm not getting great results just for the sake of diversity. And of course with the limits it is hard to get into those better stallions particularly the quarter horses because they get 30 more slots for 2 additional entire breeds wanting to use them.

I will say I am antislashing mixer steward cup purses particularly if the nomination fees are still going to stay the same as thoroughbreds. That 50k late nomination fee is tough to justify as is.

That was my understanding too, especially with Appys, Arabs and Paints, I don't think there's a lot of extra money coming from there.

The stallion situation is definitely a problem, just hoping some of these colts that are running now can be great stallions that can compete with the game created ones, which I am very grateful for, without them we'd have bigger problems than we have now. Hey Bro isn't getting any younger... in a few years hopefully there will be another player bred stud that can take his place

I'd definitely prefer the SC stays where it is, especially with the earnings issue with colts, it just seems high since we're racing for peanuts all year.

The sad thing is that overall the people who are the least affected by the changes are the ones with the most money. They're not going to have to do the drastic cuts that the rest of the players will. It made me sad to realize that, unless something really changes with my runners, The King is going to be bankrolling me and without him I'd be breeding maybe a fraction of my mares

YES, this is so true! I've got $13M in the bank, so even though these changes will probably affect my earnings significantly, my studs and overall bankroll can pick up the slack, meanwhile if a player is just starting out or struggling and wants to focus on mixers, even if they get a decent stakes horse, they will have a harder time getting the money to expand in the division and support a breeding operation, which with mixers is a pretty big necessity if you want to have stakes competitors, mixer trainers rarely sell their good stakes horses. If you don't have your own stallion those stud fees add up quickly, you figure to have a chance at a decent foal your looking at least a 15-20k stud fee

[Danny Derby]

This thread is about minimum stud fees. Someone start a new thread about purse cuts please!

[Kenneth Prater]

This thread is about minimum stud fees. Someone start a new thread about purse cuts please!

There is one already started.

https://www.simhorseracing.com/simforum ... 29&t=47415

[Tom Lin]

I've benefited from the GP sired stakes purses before, but I think it's easy to see that they were a little silly and out of line with other purses, especially in the divisions (most of them) where GP sires are simply not as good as non-GP options. I could count on one hand the runnings I've seen of those GP-sired stakes that have actually been competitive and contained one or more legit stakes quality horses, whereas I've seen countless runnings of them won with like a 79 by a horse who goes straight back to claiming company or never wins again. I like making money just like all the rest of you, but I think those races being $150-$200k was always a bit wacky.

I

This is where the incentive was. Because you were guaranteed a run for two nice purses you could justify sending a nice mare, one that probably was going to produce something a little less than it would if you say sent it to a popular stallion for example. The incentive was worth the risk.
The benefit of that GP sired foal is if the resulting foal happened to be a random freak. That colt could possibly be a prospective stallion which might affect the breed's diversity. You only need to look so far as Devon Castle as an example. DC saves the trotting breeders from a bunch of inbreeding. The problem so far is there is only one DC. The chance of future GP sired stallions have been lessened significantly IMO.

[Dylan Christensen]

I really hope that this will be looked at sometime through the year (I fully understand that The Steward can't Always react and real life is more important). But eventually I would love to at least hear some Kind of Statement as to why These particular changes were made, because unlike with foal Limits for example I really can't see how this is doing any good to anyone.

The way I understood it was that this was a way to bridge the gap between the best players and the newer players money wise. I feel like it was a little bit of a miss though cutting mixer purses and not so much Thoroughbreds.

[Erin Sanderson]

I really hope that this will be looked at sometime through the year (I fully understand that The Steward can't Always react and real life is more important). But eventually I would love to at least hear some Kind of Statement as to why These particular changes were made, because unlike with foal Limits for example I really can't see how this is doing any good to anyone.

The way I understood it was that this was a way to bridge the gap between the best players and the newer players money wise. I feel like it was a little bit of a miss though cutting mixer purses and not so much Thoroughbreds.

Trust me, TB purses have been cut, too. I run a handful of mixers but primarily TBs and my average earnings per start is only a little more than half what it was last season. This was definitely an across the board thing except for the biggest races.

[Rebecca Rose Hepburn]

This thread is about minimum stud fees. Someone start a new thread about purse cuts please!

Fair enough. For me, it's hard to separate the two because they feed off each other. Less money earned means we're gonna have less to spend on stud fees, higher stud fees mean it's gonna be hard to compete with the offspring of the top tier studs when you can't afford to breed to them. It's also stuck us in a weird place where it's bad to have a stud that's earned a ton of money but isn't producing at a Blue Bayou level as an example. I would love to drop Iron Spirit's stud fee below what it is, he'd get a lot more mares at 15k than he does now at 24k which is the lowest I can drop him to.