Freaks gone

[Lily Wilkins]

Have you considered not retiring her this season? If she wants to be a Grade 1-winning 9yo (or 10yo, or 11yo), let her. There will still be time for her to have a few kids, and if she does eventually bloom to Freak and win a Grade 1 (or has that level of ability but is retired too soon) chances are that she won't throw anything as good as herself anyway.

Good point. I might run her at 4, but that's likely the longest I would go. I paid a small fortune to lease her dam because I wanted to get the Maryland Million dam line into my stable (the filly in question here is Malicious Mischief) so she's definitely intended to be a broodmare <3

[Peter Quill]

I had a freak go to allowance LOL and that's not even the weirdest thing. I have multiple horses that somehow improved from Allowance to Stakes*

*Yes I galloped them after the mid year change.

Oh dear.... I might be wrong about when the adjustment takes place, maybe they already changed...... looking now.

I didn't even gallop one and mine changed, not sure if that was meant to be or not but thought I would throw it in. I just had a manual Late Bloomer barn set up and went to gallop them and they had already changed without galloping then.

[Laura Ferguson]

I had a freak go to allowance LOL and that's not even the weirdest thing. I have multiple horses that somehow improved from Allowance to Stakes*

*Yes I galloped them after the mid year change.

Oh dear.... I might be wrong about when the adjustment takes place, maybe they already changed...... looking now.

I didn't even gallop one and mine changed, not sure if that was meant to be or not but thought I would throw it in. I just had a manual Late Bloomer barn set up and went to gallop them and they had already changed without galloping then.

If they were galloped at any point in their career and are not standardbreds or chasers, they got the update.

[Peter Quill]

Oh dear.... I might be wrong about when the adjustment takes place, maybe they already changed...... looking now.

I didn't even gallop one and mine changed, not sure if that was meant to be or not but thought I would throw it in. I just had a manual Late Bloomer barn set up and went to gallop them and they had already changed without galloping then.

If they were galloped at any point in their career and are not standardbreds or chasers, they got the update.

Excellent. Thanks Laura.

[Tammy Stawicki]

Well undefeated dual Steward's Cup winner and 6x G1 winner Hempstead is no longer a freak. Not sure how much of that is the changes vs his precociousness finally catching up to him. We'll see once the races start.

On the bright side have a freak yearling turf miler so excited to see what she can do.

[Flizan Hambletonian]

Do anyone know how much the horses have been "degraded"? One step (stakes--> allowance)? It's difficult to know and compare the result to previous festivuses... I don't know if i should be "ok,let's go with this" or rage-quit?

[Nathan Klein]

I've been one of the lucky ones thankfully. Sure I had a few downgrades from Stakes but I kept my only freak (although he doesn't really feel like a freak) and I even got 1-2 stakes boosts. Also i'll have another freak next Sim year since somehow I got a Trotter Filly Yearling thats a Freak Late Bloomer this year that I think will propel to success in the future.

[The Steward]

Do anyone know how much the horses have been "degraded"? One step (stakes--> allowance)? It's difficult to know and compare the result to previous festivuses... I don't know if i should be "ok,let's go with this" or rage-quit?

The scale was changed by .3 across the board. With the vast number of horses that were reduced, you can see each division had an overpopulation in that .3 zone! But the horses are all still 100% the same as they were. If they were a good horse before, they are still a good horse (aging, etc not withstanding).

[Peter Quill]

Do anyone know how much the horses have been "degraded"? One step (stakes--> allowance)? It's difficult to know and compare the result to previous festivuses... I don't know if i should be "ok,let's go with this" or rage-quit?

The scale was changed by .3 across the board. With the vast number of horses that were reduced, you can see each division had an overpopulation in that .3 zone! But the horses are all still 100% the same as they were. If they were a good horse before, they are still a good horse (aging, etc not withstanding).

I think it looks good and will work out well with what was intended, for example I was putting my Stakes gallopers into Allowance races as it seemed most of my Allowance horses had no chance at Allowance aginst the better trainers. Some of those Stakes horses have now dropped to Allowance and some of the Allowance have dropped to Productive, so from that point of view it is easier to place my horses so I like it. I think it will be a good change once everyone gets used to it. I am a newbie though.

[Art K Stables]

Do anyone know how much the horses have been "degraded"? One step (stakes--> allowance)? It's difficult to know and compare the result to previous festivuses... I don't know if i should be "ok,let's go with this" or rage-quit?

The scale was changed by .3 across the board. With the vast number of horses that were reduced, you can see each division had an overpopulation in that .3 zone! But the horses are all still 100% the same as they were. If they were a good horse before, they are still a good horse (aging, etc not withstanding).

Don’t know if this can be divulged but .3 doesn’t say much without context . Is that .3 meaning 30%? 3%? .3 on a scale of 0 to 5? 0 to 100?

[Tim Matthews]

Do anyone know how much the horses have been "degraded"? One step (stakes--> allowance)? It's difficult to know and compare the result to previous festivuses... I don't know if i should be "ok,let's go with this" or rage-quit?

The scale was changed by .3 across the board. With the vast number of horses that were reduced, you can see each division had an overpopulation in that .3 zone! But the horses are all still 100% the same as they were. If they were a good horse before, they are still a good horse (aging, etc not withstanding).

Don’t know if this can be divulged but .3 doesn’t say much without context . Is that .3 meaning 30%? 3%? .3 on a scale of 0 to 5? 0 to 100?

The scale is 0-20

[Flizan Hambletonian]

I think the change is very good! I've had stakeshorses that have trouble taking their maiden. I just had trouble translating this result to previous result. I got a lot of allowances and one stakes (TBs). Previous years I got at least 9-10 stakes and perhaps a freak? On the other hand- I got 27 2 y old steeplechase freaks. I'm very happy about that!

[Carolyn Eaton]

You know what's weird - when this first went into effect - Possessed (out of Ghostbusters) went to freak, now he's back to stakes and Folktales is a freak (was a stakes, now freak) - of note - she is out of Afraid of No Ghost who is out of Ghostbusters.

Oh - and Love You Scott - my late booming allowance named for the late Scott Eiland - upgraded to stakes!

[Andrea Bouwkamp]

My freak dirt router, who was on a 3 race win streak is now stakes. Bummer. She had really nice speed figures too. I am scared to race her now. Expecting huge losses.
What I don’t understand is horses will downgrade or upgrade without a gallop now?
On a good note, I got another TB freak. A yearling turf miler who is a late bloomer too.
I also have more Chase Freaks as well.

[Stormy Peak]

My freak dirt router, who was on a 3 race win streak is now stakes. Bummer. She had really nice speed figures too. I am scared to race her now. Expecting huge losses.
What I don’t understand is horses will downgrade or upgrade without a gallop now?
On a good note, I got another TB freak. A yearling turf miler who is a late bloomer too.
I also have more Chase Freaks as well.

Andrea... your horses Did Not Change.

They have the exact same talents they had when listed as a freak, stakes, allowance on down to different career...it's just that the bar was raised a tiny bit to qualify for being called what ever it takes from a claimer on up to a freak. Those that were on the close boarder of freak and stakes, or stakes and allowance...etc...are now shown on the lower part of the scale. Again...your horses talent hasn't changed...it should run the same speed figures and win or lose the same stakes that it would have if you had entered it this year with the 'freak' tag on it.

Also, you will still have to gallop your horses... the new adjustment done with for the scale corrected horses that already had a prior gallop history so the owners wouldn't have to re-gallop them to see where they placed on the new scale.
(I believe a few divisions like Standardbred were excluded from this because they went through a similar adjustment not too long ago)

Stormy