You mugs gave him too much advice

Here we go again, rookies can win a "rookie" race that's prob worse than a 0-85.

We have to look at giving lower trainers the opportunity or chance to win something bigger, this is likely to keep them in the league not keep throwing them a win here or there & they should be happy.

The handicaps are out of sink this season especially in the hunt, way too many horses out of the handicap, too bigger fields in the flat, if we want the league to grow this will only get worse.

Its a shame some of the new trainers other than Martin appear not to post, it would be interesting to hear what stops them playing after a week or two, would they still be in it, if there was not such a gulf between the elites and the rest.

Agree that horses coming back cannot be done overnight, but I am hopeful that S07 breeding has changed considerably to stop a horse breeding forever because you saved it, a form of cheating the spirit of the game in everyone's book I imagine.

I cannot agree that just because people have time, they are entitled to win everything!

It appears most of the trainers who have their breeding programs locked in are not too keen on any form of change & expect as all elites in life, if they throw a bone to the lesser people that's enough.

Mr Angry Spain

I agree with Martin about adding few handicaps in the first week.

Need to be careful though and only add popular distances. Do not think it would be worthwhile adding long distance flat races.

Maybe sprint, mile, Derby distance for flat and 3 NH races to test the waters next season.

A rookies league or races sounds like a good idea to me.
Open to first season trainers or trainers who have come back but with no success or limited experience. Maybe relax the rules for them regarding distance (I am only thinking the flat as an example)
3 or 4 races each week for the first 5 weeks 6f, 8f, 10f and 12f - (I don't mind doing the calls) after the transfer window they are into the open league and handicaps.
If after the 3rd week we have another Martin, that trainer then competes with the rest of us

I clearly remember how brutal that first 5 weeks were in my first season! After the transfer window things calm down a little.

As I mentioned above - I really think we need a pinned topic at the top of the forum page dedicated to new players on what they need to aim for in breeding to race successfully in the league.

Martin is the perfect example of coming off a limited breeding season and being in the mix in the league because you all pointed Martin in the right direction as he started breeding his horses.

A pinned topic dedicated to breeding with screen shots as well (Doug's Fuzzy Screen's bars and stats for example) would help new players more than anything else.

I'm not so sure about the rookie league idea but a similar thing could be interesting. The 0-70 hcaps on the flat have been good. I would suggest we need one of these every week as well as a 0-60.

Maybe you could introduce one 'apprentice race' each week where only trainers with less than an agreed number of career wins can enter. A bit like apprentices losing their claim/allowance. Obviously there would have to be a fairly low upper rating limit. If someone cleaned up in these races for a few weeks they would soon be eliminated from entering them giving someone else a chance. The boost of winning makes people stay. You only need to look at the difference between Daniel/Taunton/Carl Arrogante and one or two of the other new trainers. At the start they were all raring to go and couldn't wait. Now Daniel is the only one regularly entering (of the ones I am referring to), because winning makes you want to play along.

I learnt very quickly in the first few weeks that I couldn't compete at the level I wanted to. All of my wins have been handicaps or lower but when Come Taste The Band won the Cambridgeshire last week I couldn't have been happier even though at the start I expected him to win the Eclipse and the Champion Stakes. Of the 5 I put in in the window 2 have won twice , 1 has won once and the other two have both been placed in Group races so I know I am going in the right direction as they are in the league just one year younger than they are in my game and hadn't even started racing when the league started. We need other new trainers to experience that and we need to find a way to get more of them to join in here as it is a huge advantage having the knowledge of others.

Not sure how TOM works but I would be in favour of increasing the number of races on the flat as they don't really take long to commentate on. Would have to be advised by others about the setting up and running time and if that is an issue. I also think we could cut a lot of races out if there wasn't room for anymore races. The 2 mile plus non group races are pretty pointless, even though I have won a couple. No one goes out to deliberately breed a 2 and a half mile flat horse even though Doug and I mention in the coms every time that its a good opportunity for a win. Extreme distance low grade flat handicaps are pretty few and far between in reality and they just aren't sexy, so no one is going to deliberately breed that type of horse. Yet we seen to have at least 2 a week.

Also some of the races just seem to replicate the same race. For example Craven/2000/Irish 2000/St James Palace have almost identical fields. Instead of those huge early season maidens I'd like to see the Greenham, the Fred Darling and The Free Handicap, with the winners of those clashing in the guineas. We can stray from reality a little to make it more exciting. How about having the Guineas, the Irish Guineas and the Poulain/Pouliches on the same week with the winners qualifying for the 2 Ascot races regardless of ownership. If you win a designated trial you are qualified to run. It would also be good if you couldn't see the entries until after declaration time as that would prevent the avoiding of hotpots. Realistic field size limits on the flat. Banded handicaps over the jumps, capped at 140 with the exception of prestige handicaps like the National, the Welsh National and the Hennesy. The most radical thing I would like to see is horses having to be declared as a chaser or a hurdler and sticking to it for the season. Flitting from one to the other is pretty rare in racing still and hardly happened at all until a few years ago. Either that or just have one rating to cover both. Seeing 160 rated chasers running off 100 in a hurdle race is pretty off putting to newbies.

I have a million ideas most of them probably useless, sorry for going on but I am having a new boiler and central heating fitted so I can't do any 'real' work !!!

You have pointed out some good ideas, Martin

You don't know how many trainers are joining any given season to expand the race program (more Races) the fields may become smaller but this could be offset by and this is a suggestion from me of expanding the stable size (Flat) to 25 and each trainer have 5 Game bred horses and the extra races would be Game bred Races only. Or have a smaller league say 8 weeks in the off season where you keep the same size Stable but it would be only Game bred Horses.


Gray

I really like the Gamebred addition or spin off to the league but Mark has to put into place something to stop
people creating schedules with every race set as a seller or claimer if Mark can lock that down what a leveler
it would be and pretty quick to put a team together too and EVERYONE would have a fair chance even make the
Gamebred races G1s.

Even having a percentage of your teams as Gamebreds is something to think about too.

I love the idea to have 5 gamebred flat horses, so we'll have 25 horses each. We could have a gamebred derby.It's like the US where they have statebred races. I'm playing a game where i'm only racing the game horses, it would make playing my US game even better.

I dont think the jumps need it, just add a few more Hunter Chase Races a week.

If you look at NH over the whole season not one top weight has one. Its normally one of the 9 12 horses winning, effectively making it a graded race for the lower rated horses. I know they out of the handicap but that's what normally happens. A lot of ideas are really good except remember I don't have a lot of time to implement a lot of them.

Mark is overhauling the breeding, which hasn't changed from ages ago so expect big changes there for S07.

You can compete without playing much I think I have played 50 seasons for NH and about 40 for flat since the game came out, that's not much considering how long the game has been out for. Add another about 10 seasons for next season about 3 flat 7 NH and I should do ok next season as well

All for the integration of Gamebred horses.

Been an advocate for a long time of making the league Gamebred Only it would make it a lot more competitive. And silence the moaners that have a go when someone is dominating the league.

I agree with the issue of handicaps for the NH, there are too many horses running from out of the handicap.

Gamebred's as an addition would be good, 25% of my NH horses are, although I rarely find many for the flat that can compete but a good addition going forward.

I know you all think I moan about 4,5 main players winning everything, but I guess either I am a complete numpty when it comes to this game because I have done 35-40 seasons and still have a barn full of milk float horses or I am highly unlucky, I will assume its the latter

I just can't seem to breed as others do and when I do, come the league they are rubbish, an example "Redfoot Hammer" 2m chaser beats "My Name is Frank" (2nd in the QM last season) all the time in trials, comes to the league and is currently rated in the low 80's, winning 500 in 11 races, where has/did it gone wrong ??? this is the frustrating & down heartening side of breeding even with time put in.

I will decline to comment any further on the way forward for the league I am a part-time player and should be treated as such, and I really do not like people thinking I am a whinger/moaner, if truth be told, I am a "bloody nice bloke"

Don't know about that that is stretching it

Do you trial every season? I only breed from what improves my trial horses and not on what runs well in the game. Some of my best stallions have only won 1 or 2 grade 1's if that. This if for NH not for flat

In my view there is not absolute parity between trials and league races, take two of my hurdlers, Kingdom of Titans and Dominion of Titans, the are statistically the same, same sort of breeding line, and trial evenly over multiple courses, but in the league one has one 3 G1's the other has hardly placed. Some puzzles are not meant to be unraveled it seems. It is possible everyone put their best in as Novices and one just faces stiffer competition, but I doubt it.