This may have been asked before but in NH with Mares and geldings I keep getting jockey reports of horses not settling or running too free. Most times I ask for racing handy and challenge earlier, so it confuses me getting those reports.
Any ideas please.

Bill

Have you tried using pacifiers? using pacifiers can help,

I only play the flat side of the game and never use pacifiers, in the early seasons an horse that runs freely or wouldn't settle would get sold, I don't breed from them so as you go through the seasons your home breed horse won't have this problem.

I said that I never use pacifiers but I did when first playing the SO series and have seen big improvements in horses when fitting pacifiers, but stallion and mares that don't settle can past this on to there foals and I now breed this out of my horses.

From what I can gather the not settling problem begins to be fixed as you breed. It would seem, irrespective of whether the parents settled or not. I don't think I have a single NH horse who doesn't finish a race with the comment 'not settle' or 'ran free', it doesn't seem to make any difference to whether they win or lose. Hardly any of my flat horses have that problem but their breeding programme is years ahead of my NH one.

I only use pacifiers on horses which the head lad advises them for. Although the head lad did advise I used one on a Colt which then didn't settle, I took it off and the next time he ran, he never really got into the race and the comment was 'Not settle. The horse ran very lazily and would benefit from a pacifier.' Which makes no sense but it runs a million times better in cheek pieces than with nothing at all.