Expectations

[Simon Lake]

My expectations (for my horses) are always quite low when learning a new game - but there is a certain limit to patience. How long is it likely to be before a horse in my stable (any horse!) finishes in front of more than one other horse that isn't mine? I've only been playing a few months but I would at least expect one (out of 48 races to date) to 'get lucky' even if it lacks the quality of the others.

Don't get me wrong, I don't expect to have a stable full of Nijinksy-types but I'm running pretty much anything in as low level claimers as I can find - the fact that I've still got them makes me wonder if Solid, Allowance or Productive are simply terms for 'Sell them'.

[Regina Moore]

Hey Simon,
From looking at just a few of your horses, I'm thinking they're not fit. Fitness is an important factor. Most have just had some jogging early in the year. You need to jog the horses (wait at least a week until they last raced, because they're tired after a race) and you'll get one of three comments. Ideally, the horse is "fully fit".

Let's take Murder By Tin. Looking at his History tab, before you bought him, all he'd had for exercise before you bought him was some jogging. Jogging doesn't take much out of a horse, as far as making him tired, so I assume it also doesn't do much for a horse as far as fitness. I see tiredness and fitness as a balancing act. The harder the exercise is, the more tired it will make a horse, but it'll also give him more fitness. A race is the most tiring thing, so it also adds the most fitness. 2-3 weeks is the general guideline for spacing between races. (The horse's soundness level will affect how quickly he recovers from exercise. Also, farm rest between races is really important for keeping your horses healthy and happy.)

The next most strenuous exercise is a timed workout, which takes a horse 4-5 days to recover from. Then next would be galloping, which takes about 2-3 days to recover from, then swimming and ponying slightly less than that. Jogging, walking, gate training, and paddock training take almost nothing out of the horse.

So, if you don't want to stop racing to start exercising your horses to get them fit, then I would just keep racing and know that after a race or two, they'll probably get to full fitness, and then you can start expecting better results.

Just as a sidenote, the History tabs shows when a horse was jogged, but it doesn't record the comment received. I really hope the Admins start adding the comment with the next update.

The FAQ on fitness: viewtopic.php?f=20&t=38595

[Regina Moore]

Also, on Murder by Tin, she's a turf miler that was raced at a sprint distance. Since some of your other horses I looked at were at their correct distance/surface, maybe you did that on purpose with Murder by Tin to guarantee purse money in a small field, but make sure you race your horse at its correct distance/surface if you're expecting to win. A turf miler is never going to win a turf sprint race, unless all the other horses in the race also aren't at their correct distance/surface.

You know a horses distance/surface by the pedigree.

There aren't races for 2yo turf milers until mid year. 2yo routers don't have races carded until Week 10. So, you have time to get her fit with exercising!

Here's an old article I wrote about distance and surface: https://www.simhorseracing.com//feature ... leID=10591

[Dylan Christensen]

Are you familiar with Trial Park? It's a place for New Players to race their Turf and Dirt Thoroughbreds against only New Players. I highly recommend racing there whenever possible as it is easiest to get a win there. Best of luck to you

[Gwayne's World]

Simon, regarding your avatar, where in the world did you get hold of my driver's license photo?

Welcome to the game and do take advantage of reading Regina's many helpful articles.

[George Knatz]

Simon, I lost my first 48 races too. Takes a bit of time to figure out what’s what. My suggestion is only run at Trial Park for a week or two. Make sure all your horses have the proper equipment and as Regina said are fit to race. In my opinion low level claimers are hard to pick up a wins. There’s a lot of hard knocking 8 and 9 yr old experienced geldings running in those 1k claiming races. Send me a message in game, we’ll see about getting you a horse that can win one.

[Dylan Christensen]

George, I will say to be on the lookout for free leases. These got me most of my wins when I was new. I leased out Summer's Heart because I couldn't get him on track for a win. He won 2 stakes races and nearly 100k at Trial Park and won a non restricted stakes race for me after this.

[Alyssa Lapa]

As a Junior player, I sympathize. I lost most of my races when I first started. I was lucky though and started at the end of a racing season so I was allowed to take everything in for two weeks and meet people who now help me when I have questions or need suggestions on races. I would definitely recommend finding people who you can connect with and asking them to mentor you as you go. As I just became a Junior player last month I can say Trial Park is great, but it is very limited depending on how many people are in your class of New Players. There were not enough races when I was there and I ended up having to send horses to other areas to compete. My motto is as long as they pay for their shipping cost they can stay. Remember a lot of this will be trial and error until you can find the right set of preferences for each horse to race well, and some may just be duds and not be very good racers. It happens. I give horses a 5 race trial that allows me to try different distances if they are Sprinters or Routers, and if they do not have equipment by the 5th or 6th race the Jockey will tell me for a fee. Don't give up yet this is definitely not a quick win game, and requires a lot of patience and learning how to modify your strategy. Keep an eye out on the New Players forum as experienced players like to help out newbies by offering free leases or even discounted horses.