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 Breeding Notes - Preparation for the League 
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Post Breeding Notes - Preparation for the League
Been meaning to find the time to pen this for a while now, which I shall hopefully follow up with a meet the team post for this years entrys. First off worth saying I only play the game to play the league and I only play the league as I want to win it :)

Last season was both a roaring success, winning the jumps title, and a major disapointment, falling as I did into second place just a few wins behind Paul. My jumps team nearly carried me through, but ultimately it was my lack of competition on the flat that was the decider, too good to pillage the handicaps not good enough at graded company. So it should come as no suprise that my flat team was the centre of my efforts between seasons. It is also worth providing a baseline for where I started in all lines, both flat and NH by top bars were as follows for last years team:

Potential

2yo - 95%
3yo - 100% (though I only got this just prior to the week 5 cut off and too late to really go after the classics, the team were at 95%)
4yo+ - 100%

Extra Speed

95%, most of my jumpers were at about 90% including a stack of G1 winners.

Crusing Burst

75%, many horses in both teams were in the 70% bracket, but 75% was the main.

And I play two main games, both on a UK combined schedule, where one is flat focused the other jumps.

So in prep I reasoned I had to improve speed and crusing, 100% potential at 2yo would be nice, but I figured this would be like finding bigfoot and so did not really focus on it. And from the outset I decided I would break one of my main rules 'Never breed a horse that has not suceeded at trail' which for purposes of this little exercise I abandoned altogether.

OK so first I decided to do speed. Knew others had 100% and I wanted to match so, for this I fired up a new game in the US, which had the added benefit of potentially offering up a 100% 2yo. I stocked said game with all my best sprint fillies, maybe 20 or 30 of them, won a stack of cash on maiden wins at silly 40/1 odds. Built the stable and then settled down to breed with every decent looking game sprinter until I got to that 100%, I disgarded everything else I bred as a way to top up my cash. Took I think maybe 15 seasons, before a gamebred 5f horse delivered the magic 100% extra speed bar, and in about 5 of his foals, the rest of the stats were not a disaster either, giving me some fillies and the all important colt. Happy as a clam, I exported these horses and then deleted the game. I then fired up a new UK combined game, mostly as I like getting them at 1yo, think this makes a huge difference in both codes, and also allows you to export them unraced at 2yo, so you can recreate anything that you have a naming conflict on later. This game was then seeding with a mix of my best colts and fillies from all distances and the all important speed horses. I then played through about 15 more season, click throughs with no training, racing or trialing. I simply used these two stocks, original and speed, to create a breeding stock of all 100% extra speed horses. When I got to around 40 or so fillies and a few better looking colts. I re-imported all my top flat trial horses, those from the last league and settled down to do my first actual breeding cycle. The output from this which we shall call 'Generation 1' had all the stats of my original stock, but with that added 100% speed. Worth saying I did not get this into all distances, nothing other 1.6m hit 100% and I did not get it combined with 100% potential at 3yo in anything over 1.2m, but I did speed up my 1.4m and 1.6m range to about 98%. Gen1 were trained, raced and exported and then trialed and the results were excellent. There are Gen1 horses in my team and in some distances they are still the best I have bred. Crusing remained locked at 75%.

Sweet I thought mission acomplished, I had Gen1 exported for re-use and so I then turned my attention to Crusing Burst. For this I fired up an Australian game, merely as I heard steve mention he found 85% crusing there. Stocked the game with all my best middle and long distance fillies, added a few money making sprinters for those 40/1 maiden wins again, built the barn and then settled down to breed with every decent long distance colt the game threw up, again no racing and selling the chaff. And god was it a major frustration. I think after about 40 seasons, with the required re-fills of my breeding stock, I had only found a few horses that took me to 78% crusing, I was pretty much on the verge of chucking it in, but that one more season thing nagged at me, likely it was more than one :) and I hit pay dirt, 8 foals all from one horse with a magic 80% crusing burst, all 1.6m to 2.2m stayers, colts and fillies and the rest of the stats were ok too, aside from potential which was ugly. This them motivated me a little as I figured if one horse can take 75% to 80% so consistently it must have itself been highers, so I pressed on looking for better. This quickly became soul destroying, and I gave it up after getting a bred with three horses at 83% (these from the earlier bred 80% horses), though all three were a real mess in all other respects. All these were saved onto an export file. And I again deleted the game, and fired up a UK combined one to take this into my lines. Same method here, my best stock, including the Gen1, 100% lot. I then did another few click through, say maybe 10 seasons, to build a stock of more of this magic crusing burst. Repopulated with my best Gen1 and original stock horses and finally did a bred cycle. I very quickly hit upon 100% speed and 80% crusing burst combinations, though potential was an issue and I could not get that 100% 3yo too stick with any of them, but 90% and 95% at 3yo was ok and not far off my orignal stock, so no matter I thought, 10% overall uplift they must be an improvement and so I bred, raced, exported and trialled my 'Generation 2' wonder horses. Gen2 sucked badly. They were really really bad and I was really ticked off. Potential the missing ingrediant and the only ones who made it anywhere near my trial sheets, were the few I had let through that were just under full speed and full crusing, say 98% and 78% respectively, and they had no better in the way of potential.

...... so then I decided I needed to mix that stock back into my main flat game, which I up until now ignored. So I took the best of the Gen1 trial horses and the best looking of the Gen2 two failures and sprinkled them liberally into my main stock. I bred and cycle, trained, raced and trialed them. 'Generation 3'. Gen3 were not actually awful, though again all the horses that had the magic 100% and 80% failed miserably at trial, there were however a few break throughs and Gen3 horses made the final team, the pick of which 'The Star Lords' who just won his maiden this week, held 98% potential at 3yo, 80% crusing and 98% speed, this horse with a few others who made top ten in trail and offered similar stats, I reclcyed back into my breeding barn in prep to do Gen4, I also kept the 100% and 80% failures to breed onwards with.

From a timeline point of view I actually paniced at this stage as the league was only about 3 weeks away and I had not even looked at my NH team, so I foolishly chucked the Gen2 failures into my Jump stock, because well they had to be good at something and bred a cycle of utter jumping rubbish, who I mostly binned, though some of the foals who had marginally better bars I seeded back into the breeding barn for another go as I have always beleived it takes about 3 or 4 generations to get flat bars mixed into jump horses. I also added an experimental line of 6 horses to my jump breeding who I had stumbled on during my stocking of one of the two UK games, either speed or cruise, these horses from a game bred jumper gave me a stack of nice jumping bars and my new personal favourite jump combination, and I also bred these with my jumps stock. I ran another NH cycle, after that, having removed Gen2 and replaced it with my team from last league and the output from both, though mostly from the experimental line and the original, looked top draw. So I put the NH down and went back to Flat to do Gen4, one week to go.

Gen4 on the flat, my last breeding round before the league started, got close to being the missing link, I had finally got some 100% and 80% horses, though mostly in the 1.4m range that held potential to 98% at three year old and trialed as well as anything I had bred. Roughly Gen1 accouted for my 5f to 1m horses, Gen3 and Gen4 for my 1.2m to 1.6m horses, and my 2m+ all came from my original last season league stock, none of the nice bar stayers I bred were any good at trial, and I bred a load of them due to the crusie line being long distance, in fact they were dreadful, but rather pretty to look at.

Right now I have reached the conclusion that 10% in speed and crusing is not worth 2% in potential, that bars are not the be all and end all, trial breeding is essential for league success (though I sort of knew that already) and that certain horses need certain stats more than others, this is both a distance and race style consideration. I am still reasonably early in trying to puzzle this all out, and short of being succesful at it, but I now look for different things now in my stayers than I do in my sprinters and overlay this with race style too, so hold ups need something different to front runners. If I had the time I think generation 5 or likely 6+ would be monsters.............thats story to be continued should there be another league for SO6.

O and finally as I like to share my thoughts on this sort of stuff. The three bars I found that have projected my NH team to what I think are new heights, what I call the experimental line above (to be proven as the league goes on I guess) Jumping Speed, I now have 90% to play with in my lines, way better than I have ever had before, Enthusiam, which I have said before I think is a real difference maker on the NH, also now play with 90% in breeding and training adapation, which if used in combination with manual training can be used to improve a horse by the time it gets to 4/5/6yo, least in my humble opinion.

Bit of a ramble, hope it offers some insight or maybe helps you improve your own team. Excuse my bad grammer and spelling. :)

Happy breeding.

Josh


Wed May 30, 2018 7:22 pm
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Post Re: Breeding Notes - Preparation for the League
Excellent post Josh.
Very similar in many ways to how i do things.


Thu May 31, 2018 2:00 am
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Post Re: Breeding Notes - Preparation for the League
It's great that you've put the time into this post and the time into this side of the game, but the fact you've had to go through this much effort in order to be competitive in the multiplayer aspect of Starters Orders is, quite honestly, absolutely ridiculous. I mean no offence to anyone involved, but Jesus wept how does anyone have the time to play the game this way?

I absolutely love Starters Orders and Jockey Rush, but I'm getting a bit bored as I'm waiting for SO7. I'd love nothing more than to be able to join the league for a bit more fun, but this just isn't a fair playing-field and I don't know how anyone can be reasonably expected to devote tens of hours of incrementally increasing stats to get involved.

Hopefully this gets sorted for SO7 because this is only holding the community and the game back, in my opinion.


Thu May 31, 2018 2:34 am
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Post Re: Breeding Notes - Preparation for the League
Degaussed wrote:
It's great that you've put the time into this post and the time into this side of the game, but the fact you've had to go through this much effort in order to be competitive in the multiplayer aspect of Starters Orders is, quite honestly, absolutely ridiculous. I mean no offence to anyone involved, but Jesus wept how does anyone have the time to play the game this way?


Well i disagree. If you want to be the best in the league then it rightfully requires this much effort. If you want to be competitive and have some fun then there are plenty of competition in the hadicapps.
Fair enough not everyone has the time or the inclination to do the grind, but why should those that do be penalized.
I would probably not play if SO7 became an arcade version of its current form.


Thu May 31, 2018 2:50 am
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Post Re: Breeding Notes - Preparation for the League
I do have the time to breed like this but I don't.
I enjoy the single player stock game way too much.
Maybe if my breeding got to a point where my horses just couldn't lose then that would be the next step.
Of course in my game I work on breeding and I find the breeding side of things interesting.
I realised long ago that I will not win at Listed or any Group races nor be competitive in them.
I have won at 0-100 but I'm not sure if I can crack a 0-110.

I am unclear as to what changes will take place to breeding in SO7 and what impact they will make but at the end of the day it will still come down to the trainers who spend the most time breeding and playing who will be winning Group races.

I will be surprised if there wasn't one more season of SO6 League so I am confident you'll get to Gen 5 or 6 in your breeding, Josh.


Thu May 31, 2018 4:40 am
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Post Re: Breeding Notes - Preparation for the League
all i want for Christmas is a new CK in SO7

The current one is diabolical its the most inconsistent thing about the game
I really hope this is the last league of SO6 i will be happy to delete SO6 just to get
rid of the CK. If it was something physical i would beat the living daylights out of it :lol: :lol:

The gentleman is right the amount of time you have to put in to be competitive is
ridiculous and putting that amount of time in guarantees nothing gives you a chance
but its always been this way from day one so having been at the bottom and the top
those at the top deserve to be where they are it would frighten cashual player the actual
amount of time they put in.

We for sure need a big shake up in SO7 nothing new has happend to the league side in the
game since i dont know when lets all be honest without the league most of us would have
given up on the game after a year its the same with any game I hope Mark will be dedicated
to sorting the league side out.

I think if you have a very good horse in the game that should be replicated in the CK my lord
how much easier would that make things :lol:

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Thu May 31, 2018 6:08 am
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Post Re: Breeding Notes - Preparation for the League
Quote:
It's great that you've put the time into this post and the time into this side of the game, but the fact you've had to go through this much effort in order to be competitive in the multiplayer aspect of Starters Orders is, quite honestly, absolutely ridiculous. I mean no offence to anyone involved, but Jesus wept how does anyone have the time to play the game this way?

I absolutely love Starters Orders and Jockey Rush, but I'm getting a bit bored as I'm waiting for SO7. I'd love nothing more than to be able to join the league for a bit more fun, but this just isn't a fair playing-field and I don't know how anyone can be reasonably expected to devote tens of hours of incrementally increasing stats to get involved.

Hopefully this gets sorted for SO7 because this is only holding the community and the game back, in my opinion.


Don’t disagree with anything you have said, but the bar was already set when I joined the league, so it came down to a choice, play for fun at handicap level or push the bar myself to the level already set. I choose the later. And I have been perhaps fourtunate with time between lots of long work trips and stays in hotels and more recently a two week lay off for knee surgery. Though the click through method is actually pretty quick, it is a lot faster than the train, race and export/trial parts.

But I am 100% in agreement this should not be necessary and that the game should be all the indication you need as to what is good and what is not. And for context that Gen2 lot beat everything in game by probably 8-10 lengths. One of the 1.4m lot won the triple crown, but then I would win this year in year out if I wanted. Placing one to ten in all the classics is a yearly event for me, and I smash the NH side by the same measure, not a question of if I win, just a question of which horse. So the game stopped offering me any challenge at all years ago, and well before this more laborious method of breeding.

SO7 will hopefully address much of this, though it will, as has been said, still likely favour those who put in the most time. The post was merely to help those who want to do it, to get to grips with how.


Thu May 31, 2018 8:34 am
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Post Re: Breeding Notes - Preparation for the League
I think people will be disappointed if they think the CK will change for SO7, mark has said the game will not change and if the game doesn't change then the ck can't change because it's based on the game.


Thu May 31, 2018 1:19 pm
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Post Re: Breeding Notes - Preparation for the League
Jango wrote:
Degaussed wrote:
It's great that you've put the time into this post and the time into this side of the game, but the fact you've had to go through this much effort in order to be competitive in the multiplayer aspect of Starters Orders is, quite honestly, absolutely ridiculous. I mean no offence to anyone involved, but Jesus wept how does anyone have the time to play the game this way?


Well i disagree. If you want to be the best in the league then it rightfully requires this much effort. If you want to be competitive and have some fun then there are plenty of competition in the hadicapps.
Fair enough not everyone has the time or the inclination to do the grind, but why should those that do be penalized.
I would probably not play if SO7 became an arcade version of its current form.


That's my frustration, though. Although breeders put a lot of thought into the horses they're trying to produce, it's still ultimately a lottery and a brilliant horse can come from anywhere. You're not going to get a G1 horse - by the League's standards - by just playing the game, but you should be able to. That means the game isn't giving you good enough horses or the horses in the League are over-powered because they're exploiting a flaw in the game, and I think we all know it's a case of the latter than the former.


Thu May 31, 2018 6:11 pm
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Post Re: Breeding Notes - Preparation for the League
Quote:
That's my frustration, though. Although breeders put a lot of thought into the horses they're trying to produce, it's still ultimately a lottery and a brilliant horse can come from anywhere. You're not going to get a G1 horse - by the League's standards - by just playing the game, but you should be able to. That means the game isn't giving you good enough horses or the horses in the League are over-powered because they're exploiting a flaw in the game, and I think we all know it's a case of the latter than the former.


This I disagree with, it is not exactly a lottery, indeed in many respects it is very predictable in the game, it is more of a lottery in the race kit and then the league, but you can still angle things in your favour.

And I sort of like the fact that the league takes a little more thought and effort than just plodding along through the game and turning up with a stable full of G1 league monsters, it should be harder as all PVP is harder than PVE, else it would feel a bit like easy mode to me. Possible yes, easy no. And nothing I do in my breeding does not use game tools, other than saving and moving the export files. Import and export is a game tool, not sure I see the flaw exploit, though I know it is not realistic.

Why not give it a try, I assure you a win, any win in the league, is so much more rewarding than anything you will ever do in the game period.


Thu May 31, 2018 8:31 pm
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Post Re: Breeding Notes - Preparation for the League
Githyanki wrote:
Quote:
That's my frustration, though. Although breeders put a lot of thought into the horses they're trying to produce, it's still ultimately a lottery and a brilliant horse can come from anywhere. You're not going to get a G1 horse - by the League's standards - by just playing the game, but you should be able to. That means the game isn't giving you good enough horses or the horses in the League are over-powered because they're exploiting a flaw in the game, and I think we all know it's a case of the latter than the former.


This I disagree with, it is not exactly a lottery, indeed in many respects it is very predictable in the game, it is more of a lottery in the race kit and then the league, but you can still angle things in your favour.

And I sort of like the fact that the league takes a little more thought and effort than just plodding along through the game and turning up with a stable full of G1 league monsters, it should be harder as all PVP is harder than PVE, else it would feel a bit like easy mode to me. Possible yes, easy no. And nothing I do in my breeding does not use game tools, other than saving and moving the export files. Import and export is a game tool, not sure I see the flaw exploit, though I know it is not realistic.

Why not give it a try, I assure you a win, any win in the league, is so much more rewarding than anything you will ever do in the game period.


Sorry, I meant it's a lottery in real life.


Thu May 31, 2018 9:28 pm
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Post Re: Breeding Notes - Preparation for the League
Degaussed wrote:
Jango wrote:
Degaussed wrote:
It's great that you've put the time into this post and the time into this side of the game, but the fact you've had to go through this much effort in order to be competitive in the multiplayer aspect of Starters Orders is, quite honestly, absolutely ridiculous. I mean no offence to anyone involved, but Jesus wept how does anyone have the time to play the game this way?


Well i disagree. If you want to be the best in the league then it rightfully requires this much effort. If you want to be competitive and have some fun then there are plenty of competition in the hadicapps.
Fair enough not everyone has the time or the inclination to do the grind, but why should those that do be penalized.
I would probably not play if SO7 became an arcade version of its current form.


That's my frustration, though. Although breeders put a lot of thought into the horses they're trying to produce, it's still ultimately a lottery and a brilliant horse can come from anywhere. You're not going to get a G1 horse - by the League's standards - by just playing the game, but you should be able to. That means the game isn't giving you good enough horses or the horses in the League are over-powered because they're exploiting a flaw in the game, and I think we all know it's a case of the latter than the former.



Yes, fair point. I dont like that you must exploit the TTF files to have any hope of being up there in the league. I agree on this.


Fri Jun 01, 2018 1:07 am
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Post Re: Breeding Notes - Preparation for the League
It is what it is.

The game allows it so it's all fair. I may not agree with it but the big trainers pushing the limits do have and pass on breeding insights that we probably wouldn't have if they didn't do it.
It's the reason why I have been a passionate supporter of expanding the handicap races - from lobbying Gray to add more lower rated races in both codes to getting hands on with the flat schedule for the handicap races and adding 'in-house' Cup races that the smaller trainers can have a crack at.
Really you're probably all lucky that I just play a stock game - I sit in my own shop that isn't busy and I could easily play a custom breeding game for 5 hours a day, 5 days a week. Imagine if I had been doing that for the last 18 to 24 months - every G1 would probably be mine this season :-)


Fri Jun 01, 2018 2:50 am
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Post Re: Breeding Notes - Preparation for the League
Do it, go on you know you want to win the Melbourne Cup. :)


Fri Jun 01, 2018 7:11 am
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Post Re: Breeding Notes - Preparation for the League
Githyanki wrote:
Do it, go on you know you want to win the Melbourne Cup. :)


Rather win it with a light weight :-) It's the Australian way :-)


Fri Jun 01, 2018 9:18 am
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