Custom Barns - How do you do it?

[Andrew James]

I'm curious how others have their custom barns setup if anyone is comfortable sharing. I've listed my system below. I'm not particularly happy with it so looking for ideas

Breeding Barns
Studs
1st year mares
2nd year mares
3rd year mares
Best Mares
Breed These
Maybe
Sell/Crap
*I'll sometimes make a lease or auction barn if doing a sale/lease

Training Barns
Pre Training Barn - all go in here till equipped/sorted
Equipment Ready
Bandages
Vet
Gallop
Pension/GP
Solids

Racing Barns
GP/Pension
Late Bloomer Claimers (this is now becoming defunct, everything just gets pensioned)
Let them Mature
Ready to Roll
Retiring Mares

[Cleo Patra]

Here is my setup. I put the numbers before them to make them sort in the order I prefer instead of alphabetical.

RACING
01 Active Racing Barn
02 Barrier Trials Barn
03 Immature Barn
Check Barn* (so I can quickly see which horses aren’t assigned to a custom barn, usually I use this a lot at the end of the year when my leases start coming back)

BREEDING
01 DR Mares Barn
02 Unbred Dirt Barn*
03 TR Mares Barn
04 Unbred Turf Barn*
05 Married With Kids Barn* (aka all bred mares)
06 ultra hot Studlies Barn
Auction Barn
Babies Barn* (this has all the foals, and then I also assign them to colts and fillies barns so I can check what I’m doing with my pedigrees for my 10 year plan)
Colts Barn
Fillies Barn

TRAINING
Keep Barn
Sell Barn

[Eric Gray]

I’m trying to decide whether to do the custom barns or not. You would both approve?

[Autumn Blackmill]

This is my current set up, but I use numbers like Cleo to sort things

Racing Barn
1. All RACERS
2. Race PLANNED! (for horses with a race I want to enter more than 2 weeks in the future)
3. In TRAINING
4. Shed F&M
5. Shed C&S
6. Fillies W/PED
7. MAIDENS
8. TWO year olds
9. UNKNOWN (for fillies/mares who haven't thrown LC or BS in gallop comments)

Breeding Barn
01. All MARES
02. TOP 50
03. FOALS
04. Broods W/PED
05. SENTIMENTALS
06. MAIDEN Mares
07. NOT Bred Y65 (for mares I didn't breed, for whatever reason, and might be ones to sell/pension)
08. SORRY Mares! (for mares I made a misjudgement in stud selection the previous season)
09. THIN ICE LADY
10. Brood SALES
11. UNBRED Mares

Training Barn
1. YEARLINGS
2. YR Shed FILLIES
3. YR Shed COLTS
4. YR UNKNOWN (for yearlings who haven't thrown LC or BS in gallops yet)

[Autumn Blackmill]

I’m trying to decide whether to do the custom barns or not. You would both approve?

It is pretty useful, imo, sorting wise. But it's also useful because you have more options for display columns. Like in my Yearlings barn that holds all the yearlings, I have it set to see Sire, Dam, and Dam-Sire, which is extremely helpful for seeing which nicks are doing well and which mares are pulling their weight (or not).

[Andrew James]

I’m trying to decide whether to do the custom barns or not. You would both approve?

It's kind of like Simperior for me now Eric where I don't know how I played the game without it.

The numbers tip is great, thank you both for that.

"Thin ice Lady" is very relatable

Really like Sentimentals, I've been looking for something like that where I know I shouldn't have them anymore but can't get rid of them.

[Durzo Blint]

Racing Barns
DR Racing
DM Racing
DS Racing
TR Racing
TM Racing
TS Racing
Claiming Racing
Race Twice
Leased Runners
Holding

The racing barn is typically all horses born allowance+. All others go to Holding. All horses that have peaked with productive or lower get pensioned. If any horses in the Holding barn improve to Allowance, they go to the Claiming Racing barn, if the make a bigger jump (I have never experienced this, they would go to a racing barn). The two year olds with nice pedigress that were below Allowance go to the Race Twice Barn, after that they either go to Holding, Claiming, or pensioned. Holding just sit there and I gallop mid-year for improvers. Then I try to clear out each year as horses peak, and/or decline, etc.

Breeding Barns
I use a detailed excel spreadsheet to map out my breedings each year with the associated stud fees for budgeting purposes and I like to make sure I at least get to certain studs. But I still keep track of the mares this way - I like to have the sire and dam columns selected here, obviously.

DR Breeding
DM Breeding
DS Breeding
TR Breeding
TM Breeding
TS Breeding

Training Barns
You guessed it:

DR Training
DM Training
DS Training
TR Training
TM Training
TS Training

I find this the easiest as I click each barn, sort by equipment, select all with none equipment and map out their training for the next two weeks. Select all the DR blinders known and be able to quickly do the preferred distance and map out the next two weeks, and so forth - takes a little bit of time, but definitely works best for me and as efficient as I could get it if I wanted them all to run with known equipment and preferred track and distance.

[Rochelle Bos]

RACING
- 0 MONEY MAKERS Barn* (auto barn with columns I want)
- 1 SPECIALS Barn (stakes+ 2yos and anyone who runs well)
- 2 CONDITIONS Barn (those who aren’t regularly stakes-ing, also allowance yearlings filter here)
- 3 FS Improvers? Barn (pretty bred babies who might improve)
- 4a R Flat Pe Barn (productive and below peak)
- 4b R Flat Pr Barn (productive and below progressive)
- 4c R Flat L Barn (productive and below late bloomers)

BREEDING
- 0 NIGHT CLUB Barn* (auto barn with columns I want)
- 0 NURSERY Barn* (auto barn with columns I want, baby’s only)
- 0 TINDER Barn* (auto barn with columns I want, studs)
- 1 B Beau Barn (Beau’s girlfriends)
- 1 B Favourites Barn (mares with pedigrees I like)
- 1 B Maybe Barn (mares who I like but who haven’t produced)
- 1 B Proven Barn (ultra hot ladies)
- 2 B Lease Barn (all the mares I want to lease, but not sell)
- 2 B Sell Barn (always empty because I’m hopeful that maybe one day I won’t be a hoarder)
- 6 B BSA Barn (any retired racer gets plopped here)
- 6 B Foals Hope Barn (my pretty bred babies who filter right into the specials training barn, so I don’t lose them)

TRAINING
- 0 NEWBS Barn* (auto barn with columns I want)
- 1 T Specials Barn (stakes+ that go right into the specials racing barn)
- 2a T Flat Pe Barn
- 2b T Flat Pr Barn
- 2c T Flat L Barn

[Kelly Haggerty]

Breeders:

My Mares- mares I will breed for myself.
Mares to Lease- as the name suggests.
Layaway- Mares leased to me for the layaway program.
Foal Barn- All foals here, includes their sires so I can track how much I use a particular stallion.
Mares for: Mares for a particular stallion I am supporting or own.

In Training:

Yearling Milers, Yearling Routers, Yearling Sprinters, Yearling Chasers: 4 barns so that setting training is easy. Right now I have so few TM and DR that I just work all milers on dirt and all routers on turf to keep things simple.

Equip Special Yearlings- yearlings that need particular workouts or equipment combos tested.

2yo Chasers- as name suggests.

2Yo Milers and Routers- as name suggests, they get moved to the racing or icebox barns W7 (milers) and W10 (routers).

Racing

Active Runners- these get entered.
Icebox- these are on hold to improve
Active Special- these are hiding so that I don't do anything I will regret. Usually they are on the sale page.

[Mary Whalen]

I'm very basic with my barns since I use the sorting feature to whittle horses down further.

Racing:
Main Racing
Actives in Training

Breeding:
Stallions
Broodmares
Broodmares for Lease
Foals (auto barn)

Training:
Main Training
Yearlings for Sale

[Meghan Kingsley]

I don't have a ton of broodstock, so my barns are really for organizing racers.

I tend to have a barn for each week.
Enter Week 1
Enter Week 2
Enter Week 3
etc.

Then as I check results, I move each horse into the barn for the next week they're entered. So if the horse is a 2-week schedule, he'd go from the Week 1 Barn into the Week 3 barn after the race. If they need a break, I'd move him to Week 4. I put my young routers into the week they're supposed to start at the beginning of the season so I don't forget about them. It's super easy to look at the next week's barn to make sure everyone is entered, and it's saved me a lot of missed horses. Once a week or so I go to my Racing Barn and make sure every horse is in a custom barn, and that each week that's already past has horse moved to the next barn for them. I have limited time, so this really helps me keep things organized and break entering down into manageable chunks.

I have one barn for extended rest/injured/wait it out horses, too, and a couple for breeding, but the racing barns is really where I find value in the Custom Barns for me.

[Gwen Morse]

I don't use my barns for racing, I just race everything every 2-3 weeks (depending on their soundness). My barns are for breeding.

I have barns for the foals and yearlings for each of my divisions.
I have a barn for mares I'm thinking of culling - the ones where if the next gallop is bad they're off to the pasture.
On the breeding side I have some custom barns for people that I regularly get swap mares from (Hi Ma!) and for Kelly Haggerty's layaway breedings.
Finally, I have a barn for "breeding shed" fillies. I lease my breeding shed fillies out to new players to race, so I want them to be easy to find.



Note: since it comes up as a topic every few weeks, I don't think that breeding shed fillies are guaranteed to be good broodmares. I'm just trying to give the newer players a chance at something that "might be" a good broodmare on retirement.