Hi folks,
Only my second game for pc and this is first forum iv joined ever...
Great game. in my second season now ireland jump&flat.... just got a walk over in a G2 race...that mean the horse i have is top quality???? thinking of starting breeding... any tips would be much appreciated.
Thank you:p

Welcome!

Assuming this horse is a flat horse, try it in a Group 1 and see how well it does. If it wins or comes close to winning you have a good horse. If it wins, keep entering it in Group 1's and hopefully you'll keep winning. It's ability bar is also a good indicator of how good a horse you have.

As for the breeding side, usually I retire my horses at the end of their 4 year old season, unless they're really good in which case I race them at 5 as well. Once you retire them to stud, try and breed them with high rated horses with Group 1 wins. If you have a male horse, try and breed with as many other horses as possible as even if the foals are no good, you can sell them to get more money.

After you've bred some horses and you can race them, keep the ones with high ability and/or potential and sell the ones with low ability and potential.

I'd recommend maybe making a new save and tinkering around with the breeding side to get familiar with it, and have a read of some other posts on the forum as well. The posts on here are what helped me when I started out.

Hope you have fun playing!

Will add a little value here to what is already a good start.

In the early part of the game the main thing your looking for is potential. And this comes in two forms, dark green on the bar denotes how good the horse is now, light green how good he could become, and both could improve during the horses 2yo season once you get a few runs into them. It may improve again when they turn 3yo and then again at 4yo and 5yo. This improvement maybe the filling out of the light green bar or an increase in both, there could also be no improvement at all, some horses simply do not improve. You usually know if you have a good horse by the time they are 3, the 2yo growth period and the turn to three is the most important, but some will not be at their best until 5, some maybe 6, though typically around 6 potential will start to decline. If you have a 3yo who has a potential bar in the region of say 80% of full your likely onto a horse who will be competitive at G1.

When breeding the two horses you select form the basis of the foal, and in simplistic terms you will get something that will over all stats be as high or low as the parents, with some degree of freedom. So two 80% horses will in all likelihood give you something in the same sort of range. Now early on of course the available horses you have for breeding will not likely be that good and you will also not likely have too many of them, so taking advantage of the game horses available for breeding is likely the best way to take a leap forward, pick the best available based on the breeding fees, but also look lower down for horses with a few runs or very fast times. The fee is really just based on money they have earned so a horse with 50 runs but nothing better than a G3 may cost more than a horse that only ran and won a few g1's, the later is of course the one you want to be focused on. Though you may also find said horse has undesirable qualities too, this trial and error part will lead you to wanting more horses to breed with, and as your overall stock improves your own horses will start to be more important than the gamebreds, as you have more clarity as to what your likely to get.

Money is very important to this end, but a bad horse breed, when sold at 2yo may generate a nice profit, so their is mileage in buying some cheap fillies at auction and just breeding them to sell, you also get a stud fee when you retire them from the game, I do this more often than auctions now as I hate it when I screw up and find I just sold a champion hurdle winner

The 2yo season opening auctions are often disappointing, but can very rarely throw up a good one, but if money is tight focus on the mid week auctions where you at least have a little form on which to base your choice. Using the horse tab to follow the best game horses in the hope they come up for auction is also sensible, and worst case of they retire you may get one season to bred with them through the barn. Lots of trial and error and lots of time, but once you have a barn up and running and are getting a few horses per year the money pressure side of the game diminishes.

After potential, extra speed and cruising burst are probably the most important, especially if you have longer term aspirations to play the online league, though also pay attention to finish application and consistency, but early on potential is the first hurdle to overcome.

Also as said do a forum search for breeding, there are a lot of good older posts on the subject, and plenty of very helpful players.

Hope that helps.

Loving the game as im a big races fan and this is as close as it gets. so far to earn money i race my horses in selling and claimers and put all my money on a win, then hope i can retain horse at a profit..... still not broke but lost a good horse...in turn that loss paid for my breeding facility.

Thanks for the info, will let you know how i get on.

How do you create a new save? or do you mean a new game and mess around in that???

I would love join the online leagues, never played online before with anything... not sure i would be good at i though haha

Yes I believe a new save game was what was being suggested. The online league adds a new dimension to the game, have a look in the online league section of the forum for info.

Josh

Online League is fun don't take it to heart you will find Jump league easier to get a winner than Flat has you can get game horses in staying races over long distances running well game horses do when on the Flat but mostly in Low Grade Handicaps if you are more likely to just play the Flat Or Jump games always trial your cast offs in the other code and throw a stable together in the other code that way you always got some interest in all the league races.


Gray

I would agree with this. If you join the league try to scrape together a few Jump horses. Winning over jumps is easier in my opinion. In my first season in the league I had around 3 flat winners and around 20 winners from jumps and they were all flat cast offs.