Minimum Stud Fees

[Dave Trainer]

The mass breeders usually have their own studs so it doesn't cost them anything to breed. They aren't picky at all and this won't make them breed less.

I agree with the point about mixers. They often struggle to get to 350k to stand at stud as it is.

[Jo Ferris]

I just don't understand the purse drop thing at all, especially for mixers. It's not like there is a ton of money to race for in stakes already (outside of thoroughbreds). Unless the end goal is to bring the overall number of horses down. Less money to race for means less horses will race for it. Less horses will be bred. Without a significant increase in the number of races the gallop change will become moot. Lesser galloping horses will get pushed out of the game again. Can't see it how it helps newer players either - once and if they win their $25K maiden. I don't get it.

I agree with the point about mixers. They often struggle to get to 350k to stand at stud as it is.

This, seriously, what is there to cut (especially my beloved Paints)?
(Speaking for Paints, don't know a ton about other breeds and how they have been affected)
Admittedly the SC races do seem a little high, but that could also be the fact that your racing for a 50k purse most of the year and it's 3x higher than any other purse we can run for with midders and routers (meanwhile sprinters have a 500k race for only 3yos, what? Can we have that? By we I mean midders and routers). Speaking of which, REALLY sucks to see all but a small handful of stakes all cut back to 50k, no more 65k Saturday races, basically only graded races are left with over a 50k purse, and there aren't many of those
Paints have exactly 3 races a year you can race for 100k or more purse, for a mid 3yo+ you have a 100k G2, 200k G1 and the SC, all of which are packed with the best of the best because these are the ONLY races over 100k total purse, would be nice to have more options instead of a 100k race with a SC quality field which a lot of trainers skip to have a fresher horse for the 200k race with a SC quality field. If you don't have a true top of the line colt as a runner it's a bear to get the 350k earnings, I have one of those running right now who definitely deserves to be a stud.
I guess moral of the story I'd be ok with the SC dropping a little bit, but bump up other stakes races, give us more options, give us some 75k stakes I want those back, or at very least move down the stud earnings requirement. This is also a lot of why there are so few studs, it's brutal to get them to the required earnings and it's so competitive only the best of the best make it through meaning only the best sires have colts that go off to stud.

Also what about mixer only trainers, Paint mids and route are my focus and are what keep my barn going, they are my main source of income earning me about 2.5 million a year on average over the past 4 years. I'm sure that's going to be cut down significantly if the stakes races get cut even more that they have been. I don't like a big racing barn, I don't run horses below Allowance gallop, don't ever plan to and I usually give away any consistent claimer/NW/Allowance type horses to newer player basically leaving me with my stakes runners and a few probably more inconsistent Claimer/NW/Allowance type horses.

And there's my rant for the day.

[Amy Bahama]

I'd rather keep the minimum stud fee and drop the foal limit. You can always work around the minimum stud fee with rebates, etc.

The voice of reason.

[Andrew James]

I have to say, I dont get the purse cuts. Ive been able to understand (from an outside perspective) the motivation behind a lot of the other changes: Foal limits, min stud fee, GP changes etc... And for the most part I tend to like them but the lower stakes purses really sucks. Essentially what it has done is make me not enter a stakes race unless I am relatively sure I can run 1st or 2nd. Running 3rd in a 50k stakes produces less income and doesn't count as a win in the stat column and 3rd to 4th is a disaster where I earned nothing and didn't even get an OTB tick. I already ran a huge percentage of horses in claimers, thats only going to increase. We're often told to give our horse a chance in a stakes race but the cost benefit evaluation is way off now. My unasked for 2 cents on the stakes purse cuts.

Now I've never been one who thinks we should complain without providing a solution. What if instead we bumped stakes race purses and drastically increased the number of races at lower levels and claimers (in divisions where those races often fill or oversubscribe) at reduced purses. The only reason I try to get rid of my DR claimers is because its essentially impossible to earn money or get a "W" in the stat column with them. If there were more races (at lower purses) I would keep and run them all. At the same time if the stakes purses got a bump it would be very cost beneficial to run your under performing stakes horses in stakes races. Even if they are always running 4th and 5th.

The biggest change I would absolutely love to see is more claiming races <10k for every division. That's the biggest detriment to me keeping horses around.

[Jo Ferris]

Jo I just got into Paints, I think two sim years ago now...did I pick the worst time to try my hand at it?

No, they can still be profitable, just seems like there's going to be less money at the higher level but more money at the lower level, which sucks for me since the stakes level Paints are my main source of income for my barn and I don't have another higher earning breed/division to fall back on.

[Lisa Bennert]

Now I have to admit that I haven't followed the recent changes very much so I didn't really notice the purse cuts, but if it is the plan to further cut stakes purses in Mixers I have to repeat what Jo said. When the top horses are running for 50k all year there's no shot for second Tier horses to run in lower stakes and you have 90's horses filling up the allowances. And also it doesn't make sense for stallion prospects, who basically have to do well in the SC or they struggle to get to 350k.

I guess moral of the story I'd be ok with the SC dropping a little bit, but bump up other stakes races, give us more options, give us some 75k stakes I want those back

This would seem like the most logical thing to me.

[Tom Lin]

If anything I think the SC purses should be raised across the board for mixers. With the previous stakes structure and more so the current purse structure for stakes an on the board finish could be the biggest difference maker whether a prospective stallion reaches $350K or not.

When the top horses are running for 50k all year there's no shot for second Tier horses to run in lower stakes and you have 90's horses filling up the allowances.

Imagine looking for a listed stakes for an up improving type and finding that both the listed stakes available have a $1M+ earner in each because the stars of the divisions don't have any other stakes options.

[Te Akau Downs]

there are some studs out there that earned big money on the track but are throwing offspring that i could get off and run faster in my gumboots that could be lowered a fair bit

[Tammy Stawicki]

I just noticed the $65k stakes are gone. Looks like the game point sire stakes were also pretty dramatically slashed. I will admit I am confused by why that happened. 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? Paints don't have any 7 figure races and pretty few 6 figures. Just a few years ago we were given new tracks in part because of an acknowledgment that it was too difficult for mixers to reach the $350 mark so more stakes were needed. I haven't gotten the feeling that that situation has improved much since that time and now we are going to make it even harder to hit 350k? That in addition to the fact that 3k claimers have higher purses than allowance races and the weird differential in higher pursed stakes my distance (I am guessing this is based on real-life) makes mixer purses rather peculiar.

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.

[Dylan Christensen]

Yeah I thought the slashes were Thoroughbred only. In honestly really confused why mixers were slashed as well, it's already hard enough to get a stakes competing mixer and now it's not even worth trying.

[Carole Hanson]

Just because some people might not know, The Steward lives in the area in California that is being heavily affected by the fires so she’s quite unlikely to be responding quickly to this thread/this discussion.

Plus Em’s also working at the Breeder’s Cup from what I understand so the SIM is taking a back seat.

[Regina Moore]

In terms of mixers in particular, let's not forget that there's also more stakes races than there's ever been before, considering more tracks (player owned and otherwise). I'm seeing a lot of small stakes fields across the breeds.

[Rebecca Rose Hepburn]

This, seriously, what is there to cut (especially my beloved Paints)?
(Speaking for Paints, don't know a ton about other breeds and how they have been affected)
Admittedly the SC races do seem a little high, but that could also be the fact that your racing for a 50k purse most of the year and it's 3x higher than any other purse we can run for with midders and routers (meanwhile sprinters have a 500k race for only 3yos, what? Can we have that? By we I mean midders and routers). Speaking of which, REALLY sucks to see all but a small handful of stakes all cut back to 50k, no more 65k Saturday races, basically only graded races are left with over a 50k purse, and there aren't many of those
Paints have exactly 3 races a year you can race for 100k or more purse, for a mid 3yo+ you have a 100k G2, 200k G1 and the SC, all of which are packed with the best of the best because these are the ONLY races over 100k total purse, would be nice to have more options instead of a 100k race with a SC quality field which a lot of trainers skip to have a fresher horse for the 200k race with a SC quality field. If you don't have a true top of the line colt as a runner it's a bear to get the 350k earnings, I have one of those running right now who definitely deserves to be a stud.
I guess moral of the story I'd be ok with the SC dropping a little bit, but bump up other stakes races, give us more options, give us some 75k stakes I want those back, or at very least move down the stud earnings requirement. This is also a lot of why there are so few studs, it's brutal to get them to the required earnings and it's so competitive only the best of the best make it through meaning only the best sires have colts that go off to stud.

Also what about mixer only trainers, Paint mids and route are my focus and are what keep my barn going, they are my main source of income earning me about 2.5 million a year on average over the past 4 years. I'm sure that's going to be cut down significantly if the stakes races get cut even more that they have been. I don't like a big racing barn, I don't run horses below Allowance gallop, don't ever plan to and I usually give away any consistent claimer/NW/Allowance type horses to newer player basically leaving me with my stakes runners and a few probably more inconsistent Claimer/NW/Allowance type horses.

And there's my rant for the day.

Oh my god, this times a thousand. I really think the changes made to Mixers need to be rolled back, especially the breeds/divisions that don't have million dollar races to support them. It was already hard for a good Paint horse to earn back their stud fee before the change, now it's a nightmare. We already have a problem with inbreeding in the breed, this will only compound it as stallions will have a much harder time hitting the 350k mark.

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

[Rochelle Bos]

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?

[Tom Lin]

With the game point sired stakes being cut by 2/3 and 3/4 hardly an incentive to breed to the game point sires. Certainly won't help diversity. I wish I had noticed all these cuts before breeding all my mares.