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Well I figured I am a little late in asking this, but how does everyone keep track of their horses? I realize this is something I need to do because I can't remember who does what where when or why.
Do you have a spread sheet thingy (like Excel) or go "old school" with paper and pencil?
Does anyone have a template file (for Excel) they would be willing to share? Or recommendations on how to set up an Excel file (like what is important to have and where things should go).
I use a new Word document every SIM year. At the top I make two lists:
Horses entered this week
Horses not entered this week
I then follow it up with a list of "Horses to enter this week". I enter all my horses in training who did not run last week into this list and divide them up by age and gender, one line for each category. So I have a list of all my two year old colts, two year old fillies, etc.
I then make a week's entries list that says "Week 1" or whatever week it is. I go through the categories of the "horses to enter this week" one by one, entering the maidens first, then the allowance horses, then the stakes horses. When I enter a horse I list the horse along with the name (if a stakes) or type (if a maiden, allowance, or claimer) of race, the race's distance, and the age and gender conditions of the race, and the race location. I then delete that horse's name from the "horses to enter this week" list and add it to the "horses entered this week" list. If I decide NOT to enter one of those horses this week, I'll add them in the "horses not entered this week" list. When I'm done entering, all of my horses should either be in the "horses entered this week" or "horses not entered this week" list. The "horses to enter this week" list should be empty.
At the very bottom of the document I leave a notes section for each horse. This is where I'll enter upcoming stakes I want to enter the horses in, what equipment I use for each horse, jockey instructions I want to try, distance and surface preferences, etc.
When results are out, I check the Week's Entries list to see what tracks each of the horses ran at and look up the results by track.
The following week (say, Week 2), I open up the document and change the "horses not entered this week" list to say "horses to enter this week" and change the "horses entered this week" list to say "horses not entered this week". Then I make a new list called "horses entered this week" and start all over. I make the new Week 2 Entries list above the Week 1 Entries list so I don't have to scroll up and down.
It sounds complicated but it works out great for me. There's more room to enter extra information than if I were using a spreadsheet. It's also a nice souvenir to keep at the end of the year. Unfortunately I got rid of all my old ones after the old SIM closed.
Horses entered last week:
Armada, Belongstotheforest, Calais, Choral, Coast, Comet, Companion, Glacier Bay, Pendant
Horses entered this week:
Bear, Bear Down, Cairo, Carbon, Cavort, Chart, Duc de Berry, Haiku, Holdmybeers, Minuteman, Saber, Skyward, Tag
Horses to enter this week:
Older females: Consort, Lyrical, Scoot
Week 2
Bear 4yo c Donn H (9f, 4&up, Gulfstream)
Bear Down 2yo f MSW (5T, 2yo f, Futurity Park)
Cairo 3yo f MSW (7f, 3yo f, Santa Anita)
Carbon 3yo c Gotham S (8f, 3yo, Aqueduct)
Cavort 3yo c MSW (8f, 3yo, Santa Anita)
Chart 3yo c Lane’s End S (9f, 3yo c, Turfway)
Duc de Berry 3yo c MSW (8.5T, 3&up, Lone Star)
Haiku 4yo f Allowance (8f, 3&up f/m, Bay Meadows)
Holdmybeers 4yo c San Antonio S (9f, 4&up, Santa Anita)
Minuteman 2yo c MSW (5f, 2yo, Futurity Park)
Saber 3yo c MSW (5f, 3yo, Turfway)
Skyward 3yo f Turfway BC Oaks (8f, 3yo f, Turfway)
Tag 3yo f MSW (8.5f, 3yo f, Aqueduct)
Below this are the Week 1 entries and notes about the horses. MSW stands for maiden special weight, btw, it's faster than writing maiden and I got into the habit somehow. I also use tabs to make columns but when I pasted it into here the tabs got removed. It looks a little neater in Word.
I use a rather detailed Excel spreadsheet which lets me track my breeding plans for retired horses and racing plans for the racers. I'll describe it here, if you want to see it in further detail, I can e-mail you one of the versions of "The File." You know how to reach me, just let me know.
Anyway, the "RacePlans" sheet in the file lists the horses's names in the furthest left column, followed by an "Info" section, with columns designated for the horses' age, gender, expected surface preference (dirt/turf), expected distance preference (sprint, mile, long), sire, and dam. Then there are columns for each week with each horse, so I can look down the "Week 1" column and see exactly who is running that week, or look across a horse's specific row to see when I expect to run horses through the year. Excel is wonderful, because it allows me to sort things, so I can quickly find out how many turf sprinters I have, or how many 3 year olds that will prefer a mile regardless of surface, etc. Pretty handy.
The "BreedingPlans" sheet in the file has columns for the Mare's Name, Mare's Sire, Mare's Dam, Mare's BM Sire, Stallion I'm planning on sending the mare to, name of the planned yearling, the yearling's gender, then a column for "other ideas" for the mare. Again, it lets me sort out very quickly how many colts/fillies I have, how many foals from a given stallion I have, etc. It also gives me a little bit more of a visual representation of my mare's pedigrees.
The file is probably the most important file on my computer, I'm not sure where I'd be without it.
I've actually got three separate spreadsheets. The first is just the pedigree of all of my horses, going back 3 generations, some racing notes, and some pedigree notes. Very brief... divided into 4 workbooks (stallions, broodmares, racehorses, yearlings). The second is for racing. It's got their full race records... divided again into stallions, broodmares, and runners, but with an addition workbook for "This Week's Races" where I just list the track, race #, and horse in one place so I can quickly know where to go when results are up. The last one is my "Future Plans" file. I've got all my stallions and mares pre-formatted to fit into a full pedigree back to 3rd generation of a potential offspring... then I can add potential stallions, fiddle with notes and names and whatnot. There are two other workbooks in this one - one for name ideas and another for stuff I want to use gamepoints for in the near/not-so-near future.
I use spread sheets for my racers divided by age and gender and surface type...and on the bottom of each horse the week it wa entered.. i try to stagger my horses so that half race one week and half the next.
Example
Thestarsajetsetter
KY,bred
The Give Applause Stakes
Lone Star 1mT
sh,fw
let the horse decide
Week2
Then after i go thru the past weeks resutls i read the running lines and make adjsutments on equipment,distance,surface, and (in the future) jock instruction...I now also try to run my horses on either the east coast or west coast circuits trying to stay on the side of the country they were bred so i can hit the state bred races without a lot of shippping around the country..
For my breeding stick
lol old fashion notebooks..
They carry the name, sire x dam(right under).Next line surface and distance they prefered..
for instance
Deadly Kiss
Lucifer x Princess Dehere
SpW turf,6f/up
-----------
Reaper-Littlebitotrouble-unplcd
Darth Vader-Vapor-unplcd
Deadly Tears-No Tears Here-(left blank as im racing her will update end of season)
For stallions i also add a notation if they are siring other than they raced,,
For Instance
Really A Star
Crypto Star x Really Blue
MSW 1m-1 1/4 dirt
Producing Turf runners
A Quiet Star-Entitled To Star-unraced
Thestarsajetsetter-Thejetsinlove-SpAlwW
he hjas a lot more but not gonna list them all,lol
I also have a crossing book..As i find the cross i want i mark it down so i dont forget
