So I have been thinking for a while that I ought to get a few horses together for next season but quite honestly haven't got much of a clue to go about it. So firstly here are a few simple questions.

1. Does it matter what level you play on - easy/normal or hard. I usually play hard, does this effect the standard of my horses when pitched in the league against someone who has played/bred on easy.

2. Do the horses I enter have to be bred by me or can I enter horses I have just bought in the game.

3. How do you go about this trialling business.

Honestly I could do with any advice on getting started that anyone wants to give or maybe you can point me in the direction of a thread on here that may cover it.

One other thing, why do none of the horses in the league wear blinkers, visors or nosebands ?

Sorry if this is all a bit of a dumb question !!

Martin ( with an I Gray ....with an I !!!!!)

Some quick answers for you.

1 - far as I can tell all this effects is your starting money and horses, nothing else seems to change and I would therefore start on easy whilst you learn the basics.

2 - you can enter both, and I have had a gamebred winner this year, sure others have also.

3 - trailing is key for me, also rather dull, in summary as you play the game at any point you can export a copy of your horse into another part of the game, this is where you trial, once you have some exports ready you just pick track, conditions and distance etc and let them go at it. The real key is ensuring they are at the peak of fitness when you export them as the export is a point in time copy of your horse.

Think I have had the odd horse wear a pacifier, but when your using these your typically dealing with a difficult horse, most people breed these habits out of they fall by the wayside in trials.

Josh

Cheers Josh,

Am going to get started later this evening so will take al that on board.

With regard to the blinkers and stuff I think I will make my first decision here and that is that my horses shall all wear sheepskin nose bands. Looking at some pictures I have on the wall here I can see Red Rum, Al Bahatri , Forgive N Forget and Mill Reef all winning top races in a noseband. I think the noseband was used as much for appearance in years gone by, as Ian Balding and Jimmy Fitzgerald used to send out all of their horse in them. Now I know they aren't banned or impossible to use I will make them a standing dish at the newly formed Leedham Towers Racing Stables in memory of the greats of yesterday !

My Advice is to start at one distance its impossible to trial more than one distance at a time for me anyway
my advice start with sprinters and work up from there

you can get a gem with your start up horses it takes seconds to load a new game id spend
a bit of time getting a few horses together from different games and export the nice ones to
the game pool id honestly fill every slot with a new game inspect the start up horses and keep
doing this til you find something nice

once you do then start a new game and skip a year if its a male horse cover every top gamebred
in the breeding barn you need money to do this

to get money save the game and go racing just write down the days results and the biggest length winners
and then save game and go back to the day before do this by clicking the back up button then go in a back
the winners wrote down that won well a reverse forecast can get a big balance

also buy horses in the 2YO auctions and util you are set up go to the thursday Auctions

once you have 16 bred sprinters go to the ck and set up a 5 furlong or 6 furlong trial
run 5 of them give points to the top 6 like 8,6,4,3,2,1pts and you best horse will be the top
points scorer in your trials

hope this helps please feel free to ask any questions

oh and easy mode just gives you more money and horses nothing else

Best advice I can offer right now is too forget the league and play the game, unless your very fourtunate you are going to be a while away from league capable horses, so I would make your first targets game targets and aim to win a G1 and set up a breeding barn etc, you will also need to get a handle on your finances.

When you have cracked the game g1's you will likely have a platform to build onto the league. First few years in game and the hardest, most enjoyable and most rewarding.

Josh

That said Paul's approach is not without merit if your going straight down the league path

First of all the Professor is very good so anything he says is good advice Martyn

Q1 I always play on easy mode training horses to me is painful I like them Ready to go if you want league Horses its better on easy mode all the training is done for you and you can go through season quicker.

Q2 Homebred Gamebred it doesn't matter just one rule No Brothers And Sisters can be in the Same season.

Q3 I always start with the Flat Trialing has its quicker Sprinters to Stayers I Trial 2YO at 5F,6F ,7F ,1m and 1m 2F At Ascot up to 1mile and the Rest at Newmarket more space at Newmarket No Bends so you wont get horses running wide. 3YO at 6F,1M, 1m 2f, 1m 4f, 1m 6f and 2miles No Races over 2Miles for 3YO 4YO 5F, 6F, 7F, 1M, 1M 2F,1M 4F,1M 6F,2M ,2m 2f and 2m 4f

and the Jumps Always Cheltenham Hurdles 2m, 2m 2f, 2m 4f, 2m 6f and 3miles Chasers the same but extra distances 3m 3F,3m 5F,4M ,4m 4F

And here is a Link Martyn to a video showing how to export use the subtitles Tab if not showing up Auto and its the Old Tom Website but its the same exporting.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fKFSxSw74QY&t=6s


Gray

Cheers all. Have just looked through my saved games and I have quite a few decent group winning mares, some with full potential bars so maybe they will prove a good base.

Gray - With an I mate ..... with an I ... MartIn not MartYn Aaaargh

Sounds like you have a good base to start from

Ok my bad, I thought you were coming to this without a game base to build on

No breeding operation to build on, need to start that from scratch, and when I say a few mares I literally mean about half a dozen, and all jumpers, so it is still going to be a long haul I reckon. But at least it is a base of sorts. Don't worry though I don't think I will be challenging any of you elite lot until S07 but figure starting out now will give me a bit of practice !

I agree with Paul on getting a good stallion when you repeatedly start a new game. This worked for me and although I am not a trainer in Pauls class, I have had a few winners this season.

I would start a new game on easier mode, as this gives you 5 horses, inspect the horses green bars. For a beginner, the main bar to look at is the light green potential bar. You want this bar to be as full as possible. Forget about the other bars with this first stallion, you can breed these other bars later in the game.

This is the boring part. If there is no stallion with about 90% potential, quit the new game and start another new game, inspect the horses again. Keep repeating this proceedure until you find that one stallion to start your breeding program. I had to do this about 50 times before I found a horse with good potential.

Don't worry about mares when you do this, you rarely get a good mare to start with.

When you find that stallion, export it to the game pool and make a couple of copies of the ttf file, as this then allows you to import the stallion into other new games.

I wouldn't bother racing this stallion, just send it to the breeding barn and breed with every single mare you can. Paul explained above about how to get money by taking a note of which horse wins what race, save the game and go to the backup copy of the game and bet these horses. You need lots of money to buy the stable upgrades and to go to the various auction sales and buy horses. I usually try to get about £10 million when starting a new game.

As Josh suggested, I wouldn't try to breed league horses straight away. Play the normal game for about 15 seasons until you gain a strong grasp of breeding fundamantals, then you can try your hand at breeding for the league.

Anytime you want more advice, come back to the forums, as there are plenty of people willing to help.

Good Luck on your breeding.

Jim

It's the Welsh in Us.

I'd say if u going to bred horses for next season then I would pick either the jumps or flat, don't do both. Whatever u do make sure u get a good bunch of horses to start with, play a good few games first looking for the horses before u play. Then put them all in u game but make sure u have horses over all the distances because that's how u get u horses to improve.

If I was u I would bred for the jumps because u have more chance to catch up, the gamebred jumps horses are far better than the flat version. If u going to bred jump horses use the Festival races as a bench mark, even now i do it. It just gives u a idea of how good u horses are. Always go to Thursdays auctions because u never know what u might pick up. Good Luck.

Ps) Martin i think it was u who said u a steelers fan in a preview show, sorry to tell u My Pats are going to beat them this weekend.

Sounds like a plan as most of my good horses are jumpers already. As for the NFL well we have a plan, each player will have a bal pump secreted about their person just in case those balls get deflated !! Seriously though it will be a great game and whilst I expect you to probably win, I hope you don't !!

Another question for all:

Do you save/export your horses at different ages before deciding which version to use in league and if so is there a better time of year to do it. For example would a 2yo being exported at end of a season be better than one earlier in year etc

If they need a pump I've got a spare one in my garage

For the flat I'd put them in around September, but make sure they are fully fit and have ran well last time out. And over jumps i always put them in on the 1st of January, not really sure it makes that much difference. On the flat if they have full potential at 3 put them in then otherwise i would wait till they are 5. They improve until 5 then they start losing the potential.