Running a Small Stable

[Carole Hanson]

I’d like to start a discussion on running a small stable vs. running a large one. Feel free to counter my post and tell me why running a large stable for you is better and how to benefits you, list some more cons for running small stables if you’ve got them!

I guess I’ll go on the defence of running a small select stable. Here’s my pros of running a small select stable:
1. You have more time to spend on each horse individually so you are able to place them better/find ideal races for them
2. If you have a small stable, you are surely more selective of quality, so it’s unlikely that your horses will be out of the money majority of the time. Brings me to my next point...
3. Your stats (Win % and OTB %) are likely to be a lot better that way (there are exceptions to that of course, just look at Pete Vella’s stats, and he runs a huge stable).
4. This model is great for specialising in a division and it’s also great for someone who gets too overwhelmed and unmotivated with a large stable (me).
5. You spend less money on board, day rates, shipping and breeding
6. You can be more selective with your breedings as less horses means more budget to spread around.

Some cons I can think of:
1. You don’t earn as much as you would running a big stable (though a lot of players earn BANK running small-ish or small stables, like Kris Bobby, Danny Derby and Mike Springer)
2. You are unlikely to make it onto the Simmy trainer of the year ballot (though it can be done, Kris Bobby won it last year).
3. There are bound to be rough patches during the year where your horses are having a rough go of it, with a big stable, there’s always something to pick up the slack.
4. You have less chances at winning the big races.
5. The difference between bad years and good years can be pretty drastic at times.


Also, I absolutely don’t recommend a small stable for new players. Get as many runners as you can, whatever the division and run them. But when you have earned enough that you’re living comfy, I’d recommend trying to specialise in a couple of divisions and reducing your numbers. But that’s just how I like to play, there’s no right or wrong.

[Keith Maidlow]

Funny you should start this thread. I was looking at trainer stats which, as of Tuesday week 2 I don't show up on due to the fact I have only 9 starts. My small stable of 45 horses (28 runners) had about 190 starts all of last SIM year and probably will have less than 200 again this year. After 7 days of racing, including Monday week 2, 30 players have 197 starts with the top being 764. More runners in 7 days than I will have all year and in some cases 4 years!!! My 28 runners are five freaks and 23 stakes (some running in claimers) so I have a perceived quality group of horses, but that will never compete against the bigger stables for wins or money.

My question was, how many horses do these trainers have to run to generate those kinds of number? Well it takes 9,206 to support 764 starts in 7 race days. I found 78 players with over 1000 horses (could be more since I only checked players I knew or were on the list for starts), 38 players with 2000 or more, 24 - 3000 or more, 18- 4000 or more, 12-5000 or more, 7-6000 or more, 2 at 7000, 2 at 9000 and the top is 10634!!! Now all of these are not runners, but the numbers of mares and stallions and foals and, and, and...odds are there might be something in there that yields better results than my 45.

I like my stable size for my current playing needs and applaud everyone who can manage those gigantic stables and have the success they do in all areas of this games multi layered play. But certainly more money lends itself to more success and more horses yield more opportunities for finding the "big horse".

Bottom line I still have fun even though sometimes I feel disadvantaged and that what it's all about, the fun.

[George Knatz]

Running a large stable is very time consuming. I spend 2-3 hours entering on Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday. I would estimate that I spend 25 hours a week doing SIM work. That doesn’t count the time I spend just goofing off in here. It’s pretty easy to burn out entering that many races. Kwok and J.r. are prime examples of that.

It’s also very expensive. Last season I spent 7 million on shipping and my daily fees totaled 3.3 million. So my yearly expenses are right in the 10 million range.

Most people with small stables have no desire to run 500 races a week. If I ran 10 races a week I would be bored to death and would probably have moved on by now. There are days when I consider just running my TB freaks and stakes (I have over 200 of them) but that would still probably be over 1000 races a season.

Luckily, I’m retired and my wife likes that the SIM keeps me at home.

[Andrew James]

It's really neat seeing just how many different and varied ways there are to play the game and be successful. It's like a capitalism microcosm.

The steward once asked me what "my style" was for an Edge question. I still don't know if I have the answer. I feel like I need to walk the line a little betweeen it being fun but keeping me busy enough I don't get bored. So far I've done so by racing every horse I breed that is above claimer. Eventually I would love to be running a stable of all superstars but after 20 plus racing seasons I've made my peace with it if this is my peak

[Rochelle Bos]

Gwen’s article was from the view of a new player, who don’t have a few dozen horses who can hold up a stable. Trial park really isn’t what it used to be. People get free stakes leases all the time. They are given allowance horses for free. It’s not all claimers and solids.

This is my 7th sim year and every year my barn gets smaller because I just can’t be bothered putting my limited RL time into racing horses who refuse to do anything.

This year I’m down to 70 horses that I actually race, admittedly that will go up as milers and routers start, but it will also go down as horses decline.

My first year I had almost 1000 starts, I then peaked in my second year with 1850. Every year it’s gone down 100-200 starts since then. With last year having less than 850. My racing barn is a little under half what it was last year.

It’s all in how you like to play! Some people will spend hours and hours finding the perfect races for their horse, because that’s what makes them happy and that’s how they want to play! Me I spend maybe a minute or two picking races for my horses. there are a few I put in big races that I think about, second guess, and go back to, but for the most part I don’t look back.

Though that’s mostly because my toddlers keep me busy. And my brain is a sieve lol

There are many ways to play the game, we may not agree with them, and they may frustrate or annoy, but we can only control ourselves and no one can stop us from enjoying the game we play.

[Carole Hanson]

I was just countering Gwen’s article and pointing out some pros for a small stable. Of course there are cons too which I also pointed out for a balanced argument.

[Gwen Morse]

Luckily, I’m retired and my wife likes that the SIM keeps me at home.

It's sweet that she's supportive. Does she have any interest in joining us?

[Carolyn Eaton]

I cut back from a mid sized stable with 400 starts per year to a smaller stable with about 200 starts. I have 70 runners currently, I don’t run any lower than allowance unless it’s one I think may improve after a start. My barn count is over 1000 - which includes pensioners and less than allowance runners. I prefer the smaller stable.

[Kent Saunders]

At the end of the day it's all about finding your "Sweet Spot" that makes you happy and your enjoying the Sim. As pointed out, over time your "Sweet Spot" may change. And that may be due to liking a specific division and wanting to specialize in it. My Mrs stared out in all TB divisions and now only wants to race Dirt/Turf Sprinters. She also doesn't want to race more than 20-30 horses a week generally. More than that and it feels like work as opposed to a game (Fun) for her.

[Art K Stables]

I am kind of where Cindy is at , dirt turf sprint, maybe 200 or so races a year, breed about 80 to 90 ,last year of that 90 15 were stakes and one is a colt dirt sprinting freak , thanks to the krispy line most of the better runners have been fillies, but one branch is starting to finally show some ability in the male side, otherwise known as a krispy miracle, a stakes late bloomer, easily the best colt this line has produced, we’ll see next year

[Gwen Morse]

I’d just like to start a little discussion on this particular article by Gwen Morse (https://www.simhorseracing.com/featurer ... leID=17235) as I think it raises some interesting points and creates an interesting discussion about gameplay.

I guess I’ll go on the defence of running a small select stable. Here’s my pros of running a small select stable:

I haven't seen any discussion about my article, which was about a first season Novice player being stomped by second season Novices, and how I managed to get out from under it and become profitable.

I was just countering Gwen’s article and pointing out some pros for a small stable. Of course there are cons too which I also pointed out for a balanced argument.

How have you countered my article? Your lists haven't discussed any factors that affect first-season players.

I would appreciate it if you would either comment on my article, or remove my name and the link to my article from your posts in this thread.

[Mara Jade Vess]

I’d just like to start a little discussion on this particular article by Gwen Morse (https://www.simhorseracing.com/featurer ... leID=17235) as I think it raises some interesting points and creates an interesting discussion about gameplay.

I guess I’ll go on the defence of running a small select stable. Here’s my pros of running a small select stable:

I haven't seen any discussion about my article, which was about a first season Novice player being stomped by second season Novices, and how I managed to get out from under it and become profitable.

I was just countering Gwen’s article and pointing out some pros for a small stable. Of course there are cons too which I also pointed out for a balanced argument.

How have you countered my article? Your lists haven't discussed any factors that affect first-season players.

I would appreciate it if you would either comment on my article, or remove my name and the link to my article from your posts in this thread.

I think you're reading too much into this thread. People comment on articles all the time if there is a part that catches their interest, even if it isn't the overall theme of the article (speaking from experience). You have two paragraphs that talk about running a small stable so it's not as if it's an insignificant portion. I'm pretty sure Carole read your article and thought that running a small stable could make for an interesting discussion point. It served as a point of inspiration and she posted the link in case others were interested in what you had to say, which was:

A lot of people give the advice that new players should run a small stable of high quality horses. There's two problems with this - actual high quality horses aren't accessible to new players. Also, statistically, this is a bad way to make money. A standard race field has a maximum of twelve horses. If you race twelve horses in full races on a particular race day, and each of your entries is equivalent in quality to the other horses in their fields, (on average) five will earn purse money. If you only run one horse a day in a full field, you're looking at about a 40% chance to get a purse.

To be blunt, if any part of the article is to create discussion, this paragraph would be the one to do so because it is mentioning the wider SIM community right at the beginning. The rest of it is mostly applicable to new players, even first-season as you stated.

In short, this discussion was not created for first-season players because many of us are past that point and therefore cannot speak on it, but the wider community will speak on topics that are relevant to them and mention them in terms of gameplay.

[Nini Panini]

Well said Mara. Piggybacking and starting broad discussion on the forum is really healthy for the community, and sharing different opinions is refreshing. It keeps me reevaluating and adjusting my play style to make it more efficient, and I'm sure the same can be said for others. I love how talkative this community gets, even if a few feathers are inevitably ruffled on occasion. The constant dialogue is definitely a strong point about the sim, and it's a testament to the strength of the community.

[Dylan Christensen]

Love digging up threads that have died. Always a fresh source of drama!

[Carole Hanson]

Imagine my surprise when I woke up this morning and found somebody getting mad at this thread.

1. This thread has been up for a long time and you even commented on it before, why has the issue only arisen now?
2. If I wanted to make this a discussion on novice stables, I would put it in the New Player forum. But since I am not currently a novice, and it has been almost 10 real years since I’ve been one, I don’t feel I can confidently talk about how to run a stable as a newbie because your features are so different now to what I had when I was a newbie, so there might be tools you have that I had no clue about which would change my perspective on how to play the game. But I wasn’t commenting on Novice Stables.
3. Sure, I’ll remove your name and link to the article, can’t see why it bothers you since the article is public. I was not criticising you and I was not saying one way or the other (I even made points AGAINST running a small stable).
4. Mostly my inspiration for this discussion came from this point you made “ Also, statistically, this is a bad way to make money. A standard race field has a maximum of twelve horses.” because I disagreed with that point.
5. I also stated in my post that I don’t think this type of playing is suitable for new players. But I certainly think there’s nothing wrong with learning about it as it is something that some players might want to move towards in the future, you aren’t a new player forever of course.

Like I said, I’ll remove the link to your article and your name from it, but seriously I don’t understand why you think I was attacking you. I’ll make sure to never pick up on your articles again so you don’t get offended when I make a discussion about the wider topic you’re covering.