What happens when horses max out?

[Tim Matthews]

A few sim decades ago, breaking 57 seconds on 5f dirt or 58 seconds on 5f turf was unthinkable. Now, your horse is practically useless if it doesn't hit those benchmarks. We are clearly seeing rapid evolution.

It's well known that horse talent is on a scale from 0.00 to 20.00. What happens when horses start bumping up against that ceiling? Does the ceiling simply get raised? How close are we to the edge?

[Carole Hanson]

I am very curious to hear the answers to these questions. Really would love to have some sort of Podcast back again so we could do some more episodes with The Steward

[The Steward]

We are closer to the edge than 20 years ago, but we're not there yet. For example, Kryptonite has the same number going 1 1/4 miles as Sidney did. The difference is that Sidney didn't have a Steamboat Willie AND an Unmerciful AND a few others with the same numbers to deal with, so there are just more of them around at one time. The issue isn't so much getting to the edge as too many horses getting that good now.

[Cleo Patra]

The moral of this thread is that I will never again have a truly excellent horse

[Danny Derby]

The moral of this thread is that I will never again have a truly excellent horse

[Art K Stables]

I think it all dovetails to the same thing, the complaining of not meeting expectations. I think the most unsatisfied are the ones with the greatest horses failing to win everything. So, how is it having a great horse is a source of this kind of unhappiness? I have my own version of it, Nancy Wolf, missed the SC by a nose, won several GR 1s but has failed in big ways that I did not expect. That makes her a disappointment even though she is 2nd in points for 3yo turf sprinting fillies. Both her broodmare and full sibling won the same race she missed in. Very disappointing. One interesting note about olympians is that the unhappiest athletes are the silver medalists. The reason is the silver medalist only thinks how close they came to being in the gold, while the gold medalist is of course happy to win, and the bronze medalist is just happy to medal. So, there it is, and what Timsplaining mentions, its all about expectations. The more we can lower them the better off this game will seem to be. Still, there's no doubt when you think you have the best and they don't show it at every opportunity, verrry disappointing. But that's horse racing and why the race isn''t run "on paper" but through the algorithm with some randomness to simulate horse racing. Manage expectations, and this game will be less disappointing. And might even make you happy if a horse wins!

[Tim Matthews]

I think it all dovetails to the same thing, the complaining of not meeting expectations. I think the most unsatisfied are the ones with the greatest horses failing to win everything. So, how is it having a great horse is a source of this kind of unhappiness? I have my own version of it, Nancy Wolf, missed the SC by a nose, won several GR 1s but has failed in big ways that I did not expect. That makes her a disappointment even though she is 2nd in points for 3yo turf sprinting fillies. Both her broodmare and full sibling won the same race she missed in. Very disappointing. One interesting note about olympians is that the unhappiest athletes are the silver medalists. The reason is the silver medalist only thinks how close they came to being in the gold, while the gold medalist is of course happy to win, and the bronze medalist is just happy to medal. So, there it is, and what Timsplaining mentions, its all about expectations. The more we can lower them the better off this game will seem to be. Still, there's no doubt when you think you have the best and they don't show it at every opportunity, verrry disappointing. But that's horse racing and why the race isn''t run "on paper" but through the algorithm with some randomness to simulate horse racing. Manage expectations, and this game will be less disappointing. And might even make you happy if a horse wins!

This is an interesting angle, but I was mostly asking about the raw numerical ability of the horses. Sometime in the future, whether that's sooner or later, horses will hit the actual number ceiling. I'm wondering if it will then be raised or not.

[Art K Stables]

Hey Tim,
Yes I understood that and if it weren’t you that wrote the other article I wouldn’t have brought it in here .. I guess from what the steward said a decision will happen at some point but not now, and I just thought it interesting that as we have several at the top there will be disappointed people who think their horse should win everything..

[Stormy Peak]

To Quote Bill Walsh -- Life's Been Good
------------------------------
"I can't complain but sometimes I still do
Life's been good to me so far"
-------------------------------
lol
The song, if anyone wants to hear it again, or has never heard it.
Life's Been Good, YouTube

I think that no matter where anyone is in life...everyone has their own bar of expectations and when those expectations are not met, they are just as disappointed as the next person.
Like I said to Tim in the Chicago thread... it's just part of the human condition.

Stormy

[Polk Buffalo]

Year 75 restart...
Horses have now reached the max. All horses are pensioned and we will all have to replace them one by one with "create a horse" and "create a mare" and start building our new pedigrees?
World records are taken to the simuseum and we all start all over again?

-Or perhaps as speed figures could go above 100, the abilities mights perhaps increase a tad higher than "20"?

[Stormy Peak]

Year 75 restart...
Horses have now reached the max. All horses are pensioned and we will all have to replace them one by one with "create a horse" and "create a mare" and start building our new pedigrees?
World records are taken to the simuseum and we all start all over again?

-Or perhaps as speed figures could go above 100, the abilities mights perhaps increase a tad higher than "20"?

No flipping Way -- that's just a nightmare scenario...lol.

I've been here since 2006...and my first horse turned out to be my foundation mare Foremost. I've spend over a real life decade building up that line. I would quit before starting over again. Especially since the idea of a restart is to make everyone 'equal'. Nothing is ever really equal...especially if a new player wants to be on the same level as someone who's been here years working on their stable - and even if a restart...within a couple of Sim years...there would once again be multi millionaires and the new players/those who don't play the game was well, due to not reading about it and understanding some basics/and just the unlucky ones, once again crying that it's not fair.

Stormy