expensive to breed

[Randall Allen]

It is almost getting too expensive to breed harness racers. Stud fees are 50K, more than some elite thoroughbred racers.

You think you are doing awesome getting freaks and stakes, but it is an illusion. Most standardbred freaks are like this https://www.simhorseracing.com/horse.ph ... ID=1285462 and this https://www.simhorseracing.com/horse.ph ... ID=1331187

[Nick Shredder]

I am still very new to breeding so don't past years to compare prices with but I kept most of my harness stud selections (51 total) to the 10K-35K range. We will see in a week how it works out. I also had a hard time justifying 50K for a harness stud.

[Randall Allen]

I thought about writing an article called "Like paying high fees and barely winning, try harness racing." I figured it would probably make a lot of people mad though, so I changed my mind.

[Nick Shredder]

It's kinda sad. I grew up close to a harness track (now closed) so it was the only type of racing I saw in person until I was older so that is why I wanted to get into it in this game. I will still give it a few sim years and see how it goes for me.

[Tom Lin]

I'm sorry but I really have to disagree with this opinion. The stud is only one component of what goes into a good horse and it may not be the most important one. You can't just jump into a division, breed a bunch of blue hens to the top sires of the division and expect immediate success. I can almost guarantee you that the ones that are successful in the division (trotters) now, did not start by breeding everything to the "best". You have to consider "value" studs. And there is certainly value amongst the stallion roster.

Consider this year's Gr. 1 race winning sires:
Total races (23)
Devon Castle (5)
Tls Captain Jack S (3)
Tls Immaculate (3)
Michael Corleone (3)
Devon Trickster (2)
Darn Tootin
Sams Ghost Dancer
One Holiday Gift
Trot Kristofer
High Strike Zone
Tls Black Beard
King Cartier
Aside from Devon Castle and Tls Captain Jack S, who are both retired from stud duty, the current stud fees of the above sires fall in a range of $7,500 - $50,000, Only one is at $50K. The others are $35K or less.

Value Stud Fees:
Tls Black Beard $7,500
Devon Trickster $10,000
Sams Ghost Dancer $8,000 (retired)
One Holiday Gift $10,000 (retired)
Trot Kristofer $8,5000 (retired)

Others: Michael Corleone, High Strike Zone, Tls Immaculate, and Darn Tootin, all have excellent production numbers and range from $30-35K. Pretty reasonable IMO.
King Cartier #1 % freak producer is $50K. What you would expect.

For comparison sake any quality GP sire is considerably more expensive. $30 -70K range.

There needs to be diversity in the breed and looking for value is a way to achieve that (as well as pricing some sires high). Devon Castle, perhaps the best sire in the game to date, was hardly by a fashionable sire (Wishing Stone). Focusing on the broodmare side and worrying less about the sire side will probably take you further than visa versa.

In summary I have to disagree that it is too expensive to breed. I think it is right where it needs to be.

[Tom Lin]

I thought about writing an article called "Like paying high fees and barely winning, try harness racing." I figured it would probably make a lot of people mad though, so I changed my mind.

Appearing disgruntled in never a good look.

[Kent Saunders]

I agree with everything Tom wrote. We are actually in a sweet spot where there is no completely Dominant stud(s) out there but lots of young/promising studs. I have tried to tier my studs and currently have 1 each at $50k, 40k, 35k, 22k and 12.5k. All will get you an A+ hypo with a decent mare. As you go up the tiers more and more A+'s will occur. The $50k stud is Photobomber who is the first stud I have ever stood for stud at that price, There are 3 reasons why: First he is the ultimate outcross stud with almost every other sire/past sire in the game, Second I believe he Hypo's as good or better than all other current studs and lastly at the end of the season the last 2 years I saw alot of bad mares get bred to him so I raised the fee to try and make trainers think twice about sending bad bred maidens out of bad bred maidens to him. All that said, I re-evalute all my studs the first week of the new season and adjust to where I think they fit based on racing performance and gallops. So some hopefully go up and some sadly go down if their record merits it.
Lastly I have never turned down a request from a trainer for volume discounts...just ask and we'll talk!

[Shannon Hunt]

I will probably not be using high-end studs this year because I have far too many mares (stupid TBs lol) and far too little expertise to know which ones to pass on breeding. For breeding on a budget, I'm looking at a stud's average or median earnings (depending on if he has major outlier earners, how old his crops are etc to get an idea of what I can expect from running those foals) and comparing that to his fee.

In the trot division, you have a VERY good deal in Devon Trickster (if Gigi adds more slots - please, Gigi, I have many mares to send him!), Tls Pegasus Flight and Tls Roger Rabbit have been my go-tos for a couple of seasons now when I'm kind of broke but want to breed more anyway, Castle Drogo is one I've overlooked in the past because I had bought some crappy runners by him but one of the small handful I bred back then has hit 95 SF and 80k winnings which is a nice return on the 15k stud fee he has now.

Tls Immaculate and Raider are 30k or less and producing just fine if you sent a decent mare. Bhs Kuksa paid off well for me when he was at 15k and at 25k now he's still very worth the price (looking at median earnings) when you consider he only has had one crop run so far. Bjs Pop Stands Up (15k) and Bjs Ladykiller (10k) are also great on a budget. Montecchi's median earnings are twice his stud fee. (Edit- meant to mention Tls Swashbuckler as well, now pensioned but he was a great example of cheap fee that was very easy to turn a profit on).

If you want to breed an SC winner, you send your nicest mares to the nicest studs, yeah? Breeding Into the Unknown to, say, Napoleon has a better chance of a nice horse than breeding Claimer McNobody to Napoleon, or Allowance Mediocrette to Napoleon; the latter two may have a somewhat better chance at success than if you bred those two mares to a lesser stud, but the odds of actually getting your money back aren't super high. If your mares are producing NW/claiming race runners, matching them up to studs whose fee reflects expected income gives you a greater likelihood of turning a profit. Chances are you'll break even within a season or two. If you're lucky, you'll get a much better horse and have made a great bargain. If you're unlucky, you'll get a worse than average horse but then at least you've only sunk 15k instead of 50k. And if mares keep failing to produce foals that turn a profit with the mid-tier studs, it might be time to replace the mares... My broodmare band is best described as "adequate", and my race placement barely that, but STBT is my highest-% division (first trot G1 winner this year, sired by One Holiday Gift for 10k). My yearlings are looking fine too, a freak and a stakes by Devon Trickster (10k), a stakes by High Strike Zone, a stakes by El Capitan (and I think post-adjustment gallop comments are at a pretty good level, the workout times those stakes yearlings are posting meet or beat times posted by the stakes winners I have in my older crops so I am pretty confident that those two will well exceed their fee in earnings).

I'm getting long-winded here but the point I wanted to make was that yeah, some of the studs are pretty pricey for the division, but that applies to every division in the game, and it's perfectly possible to turn a profit breeding to a number of cheaper studs. If I were aiming to breed an SC winner in my next crop, I would throw everything I had at the top studs and pray, knowing that what I have isn't classy enough in quality to justify those prices; since my aim currently is to just keep making money while I gradually breed a better broodmare band, there are plenty of cheaper studs I would recommend. Prices are driven by demand, so if you think they're too high, go elsewhere and they just might come down in the future!

[Tom Lin]

lastly at the end of the season the last 2 years I saw alot of bad mares get bred to him so I raised the fee to try and make trainers think twice about sending bad bred maidens out of bad bred maidens to him.

This is an excellent point. Sometimes this has to happen especially when you are trying to establish a new stallion. People are looking at the stud book and numbers will influence a potential breeder. I'm also surprised at times how much some breeders are willing to spend on a "less than spectacular" mare.

[Gigi Gofaster]

I just added 30 more to Devon trickster since he’s bound to get pensioned any day now. He’s VERY good value
https://www.simhorseracing.com/horse.php?HorseID=752554

If he fills again and there’s still demand somebody send me a message in game and I’ll add more. Poor guy lived in Castle’s shadow for so long, now is his chance to shine!