Training patterns

[Kim Helley]

Is there a good “pattern” to follow for training? Weeks/days to gallop, week the start a work, how far to work them based on DR/DS etc?

[Dave Trainer]

https://www.simhorseracing.com//feature ... pleID=5100

Have you read through these?

Don't work yearlings until week 5 and leave a full week between works.

[Kim Helley]

https://www.simhorseracing.com//feature ... pleID=5100

Have you read through these?

Don't work yearlings until week 5 and leave a full week between works.

I had not seen that - perfect! Thanks so much Dave

[Laura Smith]

I wrote this out to answer some questions another new player had not so long ago.
Hopefully you find it helpful as well.

Training in general is something that everyone does a little differently. The objectives of training a yearling or 2YO are generally:
-increase/maintain fitness
-figure out correct equipment
-assess talent
-give horse "experience"
2YOs also need to have at least two timed workouts (lifetime) before they can race.

The training process usually starts as a yearling. Yearlings can be exercised as early as the preseason of their yearling year (i.e. the time before Week 1 starts.) Most players use this time to gallop their yearlings to receive the gallop comment, a clue as to what the quality of the horse might be. You can gallop, longe, train in the gate or paddock, swim, jog, pony or walk yearlings safely starting in the preseason, but if you try a timed work before Week 5, they are very likely to be injured.
All these exercises make the horse tired, in varying amounts. Walk and jog are not very tiring -- a horse could theoretically do these things every day, though there's really never a reason to. The other exercises are more tiring, with swimming, lunging and galloping near the top of the list -- an average horse typically needs at least two days, at a minimum, to fully recover from a gallop. Timed works are the most tiring; short (2-3f) works might have a four-to-five-day recovery time, while works up to 7f might take a full week.
The more tiring exercises, as you might expect, add more fitness. Fitness can be assessed by jogging the horse; the trainer will give you one of three comments (unfit, somewhat fit, fully fit.) You shouldn't ever have to worry about fitness unless a horse has been totally idle for six weeks or more, and even then, it's probably better for your bankroll at this point to just race unfit horses and potentially bring in checks. Racing unfit doesn't hurt them, and races add a lot of fitness.

Finding equipment is the best use for timed workouts for yearlings.
I suggest working each animal once a week, to be safe -- each time with a different piece of equipment, and once with none at all. In the end, you should be able to pick out the pieces that resulted in the fastest times (which might be one piece, two pieces, or none) and use that equipment when the horse races.
I like to work my sprinters at 3f on their chosen surface, milers at 4f and routers at 5f. You can compare this against the workouts of other horses to help you choose what races to enter, if need be (you might not want to put your horse in a race with one that worked a full second faster at the same distance, right?)
You will want to make sure the horse in question is fit before starting the regimen, because you want to compare the works to each other with as few variables as possible, and unfit horses are slower.
You can start this right away for 2YOs, but remember to wait until W5 to do timed works for yearlings. You can use other exercises in the meantime to get your yearlings fit. Galloping a horse also has a chance of revealing one piece of correct equipment, so gallops are handy for this.
Do have a look back through the horse history of your 2YOs, as well -- some of them may have been galloped a lot, and there is a good chance that a piece of equipment might have been revealed. In the case of router 2YOs, they can't race till W10 so there's lots of time to figure out equipment through works -- but for the sprinters and milers, if you can confirm one piece, it might be best to just race the horse, trying different combinations. After every race, you can "Ask the Jockey", which is free, and the jock will tell you if the equipment combination you used is right or wrong.
You can also "buy" one correct piece using Game Points, but it's probably not necessary at this point. I only use that for really good horses, but some players use it for every horse -- depends if you want to put real life cash into the game or not. While we're on that topic, SIMperior membership is a godsend and well worth the real money, even for me, and I don't have much of it, lol.

Horses in regular work (racing or having regular workouts) don't need other exercise -- less is more, really. It's tempting to hit all the buttons, but I will only use additional exercise for a racing horse if they have a four-week or longer break between races, and even then I wouldn't say it's necessary.

Check out Regina Moore's Feature Race articles -- she's a prolific writer of material aimed at newer players, and there is a lot of great info. Some of it is dated in terms of features that have been added to the game since, etc. -- but the base info is still sound.

Hope that helps!!

[Kim Helley]

I wrote this out to answer some questions another new player had not so long ago.
Hopefully you find it helpful as well.

Training in general is something that everyone does a little differently. The objectives of training a yearling or 2YO are generally:
-increase/maintain fitness
-figure out correct equipment
-assess talent
-give horse "experience"
2YOs also need to have at least two timed workouts (lifetime) before they can race.

The training process usually starts as a yearling. Yearlings can be exercised as early as the preseason of their yearling year (i.e. the time before Week 1 starts.) Most players use this time to gallop their yearlings to receive the gallop comment, a clue as to what the quality of the horse might be. You can gallop, longe, train in the gate or paddock, swim, jog, pony or walk yearlings safely starting in the preseason, but if you try a timed work before Week 5, they are very likely to be injured.
All these exercises make the horse tired, in varying amounts. Walk and jog are not very tiring -- a horse could theoretically do these things every day, though there's really never a reason to. The other exercises are more tiring, with swimming, lunging and galloping near the top of the list -- an average horse typically needs at least two days, at a minimum, to fully recover from a gallop. Timed works are the most tiring; short (2-3f) works might have a four-to-five-day recovery time, while works up to 7f might take a full week.
The more tiring exercises, as you might expect, add more fitness. Fitness can be assessed by jogging the horse; the trainer will give you one of three comments (unfit, somewhat fit, fully fit.) You shouldn't ever have to worry about fitness unless a horse has been totally idle for six weeks or more, and even then, it's probably better for your bankroll at this point to just race unfit horses and potentially bring in checks. Racing unfit doesn't hurt them, and races add a lot of fitness.

Finding equipment is the best use for timed workouts for yearlings.
I suggest working each animal once a week, to be safe -- each time with a different piece of equipment, and once with none at all. In the end, you should be able to pick out the pieces that resulted in the fastest times (which might be one piece, two pieces, or none) and use that equipment when the horse races.
I like to work my sprinters at 3f on their chosen surface, milers at 4f and routers at 5f. You can compare this against the workouts of other horses to help you choose what races to enter, if need be (you might not want to put your horse in a race with one that worked a full second faster at the same distance, right?)
You will want to make sure the horse in question is fit before starting the regimen, because you want to compare the works to each other with as few variables as possible, and unfit horses are slower.
You can start this right away for 2YOs, but remember to wait until W5 to do timed works for yearlings. You can use other exercises in the meantime to get your yearlings fit. Galloping a horse also has a chance of revealing one piece of correct equipment, so gallops are handy for this.
Do have a look back through the horse history of your 2YOs, as well -- some of them may have been galloped a lot, and there is a good chance that a piece of equipment might have been revealed. In the case of router 2YOs, they can't race till W10 so there's lots of time to figure out equipment through works -- but for the sprinters and milers, if you can confirm one piece, it might be best to just race the horse, trying different combinations. After every race, you can "Ask the Jockey", which is free, and the jock will tell you if the equipment combination you used is right or wrong.
You can also "buy" one correct piece using Game Points, but it's probably not necessary at this point. I only use that for really good horses, but some players use it for every horse -- depends if you want to put real life cash into the game or not. While we're on that topic, SIMperior membership is a godsend and well worth the real money, even for me, and I don't have much of it, lol.

Horses in regular work (racing or having regular workouts) don't need other exercise -- less is more, really. It's tempting to hit all the buttons, but I will only use additional exercise for a racing horse if they have a four-week or longer break between races, and even then I wouldn't say it's necessary.

Check out Regina Moore's Feature Race articles -- she's a prolific writer of material aimed at newer players, and there is a lot of great info. Some of it is dated in terms of features that have been added to the game since, etc. -- but the base info is still sound.

Hope that helps!!

Great details Laura - thank you so much!!

I have some 2yos that I am going to try and see what I end up with. None of them have ever had a timed work and I have those scheduled now starting w1d1!

To figure out the type of horse (miler, router, etc) - is that always hereditary?
Is it best to start with no equipment to baseline if no equipment has been suggested in gallops?
Is equipment hereditary?

I was going to look at some of the “good” stakes horses in the 3 and 4yo brackets for each type and figure out some patterns those types use (gallop every 3 days? Work once a week? etc) and hope my little solid/productive bunch can do well enough

[Dave Trainer]

The type of horse is hereditary, breed 2 Dirt Routers you get a Dirt Router. Equipment is random,