Hello all!

After posting the thread a few days ago about me destroying my opposition on my game, I got a couple responses about the online league. A huge focus of mine was to try and win everything in sight and become champion trainer in which I did rather successfully. After hearing about the online league it has given me a new focus. I have completely deleted everything I have saved on my game and tonight I will be starting from scratch. My focus is going to be on breeding equine greatness . I have a lot of time on my hands until around the 6th of August so I can put a lot of hours into this. Before I start can somebody please tell me all the information to do with the online league and how it works? I think I get the general idea of it but I'm not too sure. Thanks!

Ouch, I would not have suggested starting from scratch you may have already had equine greatness......

Watch this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fKFSxSw74QY


Gray

Ok quick summary. Two sides to the league jumps and flat, separate stables allowing up to 30 jumpers and 20 flat horses. Runs for around 15 (I think) weeks, with three race days per week, roughly 7/8 races per day per disipline. Races will cover flat sprints to 2mile staying hauls, jumps are hurdles and fences 2 to 4m. Races range from g1 to maidens and everything in between.

There are at least 10 races per day more on day 3 13 Weeks of racing both Flat and Jumps

Flat will contain the biggest races including all Classic's UK, Irish and French also the Arc Meeting and Breeders Cup and Melbourne Cup most Flat trainers try and win the USA Triple Crown also the league caters for Trainers whos horses once entered in the league quickly find out the monsters in their game are really not so monsters but little wee donkeys but gives every one that enters the excitement to see your horse winning a race and Newbies Quickly learn and always come back better the next season.

Jumps again contains all the big Races the Cheltenham, Aintree, Punchestown Festivals all the Grand Nationals Kempton's Boxing Day Meetings trainers will find out horses will be more competitive in the league has Game bred Horses seem to stay better than home breed horses and I would trial all your cast offs from the flat over the jumps you be surprised how many flat horses like Jumping.


Gray

Gray touches on the key point with the league, you know that 30+ g1 winning super star you had that dominated the game throughout his entire career and won everything, well he is probably a donkey. League races are not run in the game, they are run in a race kit, essentially a version of the export and trial option you have in the game, and here's the kicker, performance in the game and performance in the export feature or tk are not aligned. I did my first league last year, joining in the week 6 window and I came in with a stable of g1 stars; they were smashed, raped and generally made to look like an entirely different horse. Why? Because everyone in the league has beaten the game, and the long serving trainers know the wrinkles that you have as of yet not been forced to work out, who thought crusing burst mattered or that a full extra speed, full potential 2yo 1.4m even existed and why as you can beat the game easily without one. But these chaps have them, and in spades too (personally I think they all hacked frankel, jest).

There is also, and this utterly bemuses me so don't ask why, an aledged hidden stat that determines tk performance and has nothing to do game performance, and as alarming as my g1 stars being smashed was, what was more alarming was that the few winners I had came from the crap horses I only added to my stable to make up the numbers, some of whom had never really won anything in game. So if your going league, take some time to familiarise yourself with the export and trailing feature, see if you can restore your backups from your deleted game, and breed just for the sake of trailing, because it seems to be the only aspect that matters and then breed from these not your game stars........

So take that full speed 6f you have and breed him with a 2 miler, cross your fingers and hope for the luck fairy that the speed is carried over into the foal, along with the distance from the 2 miler or at least some of it and work from there, I have two such horses at 1.4 and 1.6, after a load of attempts and I mean hundreds both of whom I think will be decent but not stars as I have yet to get the cursing burst into them beyond around 50%, that I tend to find in distance horses or my staying jumpers. Play the same game trying to get high cursing burst into a sprinter and your likely onto a very good thing.

Breed to enhance potential, speed and cursing burst from what the top end chaps say on the forums, as your main priorities. And be a little more forgiving on your breeding cuts. My best sprinter ever in tk barely won a g1 in game, and sadly as it was before really got to grips with trailing, I retired him and only kept a single copy in a breeding game. He had full potential at 2yo but the rest looked decidedly average, odd even as aside from battling qualities he had a straight line down on everything else bang on the 50% mark. What makes him better than the rest?, search me, cursing burst with his out and out front running preference? No idea, I just wish I had copies and a version in all breeding games I run, three, to move the lucky fairy more to my side of the table

NB - only one same sire/mare combo is permitted in league play to remove the potential for cloning at file level, so do everything in triplicate or more to mix up the horses but keeping more consistency with the stats you want and the tk results. But there are a lot of seriously good old hands in the league, I am just a mere learner, from what I have seen from my limited experience, they are not keen to give up the crown

That is a good point about breeding - no full brother or sister in the league - so make sure you pick out your best horse if you have repeated the same breeding.

From my first league season - I too came back to earth with a thump - but if you do have some undefeated horses in your game they may do alright in the Group Races.
My only advice for the league is after the first few weeks when you get an idea where your horses are at, place them wisely and you will have some exciting results.
I got a huge buzz winning a 0-100 Hcp and other lower Hcp races and seeing my horses being competitive - no such buzz watching my horses getting thrashed in bigger races.

As Josh said - see if you can salvage any of the horses you deleted from your first game - they would have been a great stepping stone - otherwise breed, breed and breed while you have a couple of weeks of spare time

I think Gray touched on a good point too - don't put all of your best flat horses into the flat league - save a few for the jumps season - especially if they have good jump and jump speed bars in their stats.

Also save your horses at all age groups as well so you can enter in 2yo and 3yo races.

Doug

So basically the league is a huge doddle and not worth my time?

Thanks for all the replies, really interesting! I started a new game last night but I'm literally still in the baby stages. Please forgive me if my questions sound a little dumb, but in terms of the game on a whole I'm completely still learning. So when I get a string of horses together that I feel worthy enough to challenge your monsters I'll post them up in here for opinions and advice on if I stand any sort of chance ha!

Do that but still enter them in the league anyway and post up any questions you have as well

Hello all, I'm going to sound like a doughnut but here goes. I have an horse I want to show you but my screenshot isn't working, any ideas? I'm pressing print screen and as I paste to paint it just goes completely black.

Are you in Window Mode or Full Screen ? try window mode


Gray

Thanks for the reply simpleminds. How do I put the game in window mode?

Not 100% sure as I only messed with this once and then decided not to bother (an unbeaten 140 rated I have) but I think you need to have the image publicly availabile, you then point the site to that public application. Something like 'dropbox' I believe is suitable for this.

Still not entirely sure how to do it but never mind. I had an unbeaten Oaks and St. Leger filly with a rating of 130 if I recall correctly. Ran her into her 4YO season with a campaign mapped out towards to Arc. She wanted further than 1m4f but I got greedy . Ended up coming second by a length. She's now in the barn after nine career runs and eight wins. Had a couple of her offspring which are pretty decent.