I've been playing SO4 for over a year now, and I've come to face one huge obstacle: winning group races. Now, I've never had a problem winning group 3 races, it just takes a while for me to buy/breed a horse good enough to do so. After starting a new game and rolling through a few seasons, I generally manage to get a solid group 3 winner. It's group 2 and group 1 that give me trouble! I've had very few group 2 wins (and by very few, I mean less than 10 overall) in all of my time playing SO4, and I have never once managed to win a group 1 race. I enter horses that I think could really win, and they are constantly marked as the favorite or close to it, but they always fail. I haven't even come close to winning one, it's always dead last or nearly dead last. Is there some sort of group 1 secret that I've been missing out on? My horses have very good stats in general, so I don't understand why they haven't managed to win any group 1 races. I've played over 100 seasons combined, you would think that I would have won at least one group 1 by now! A bunch of my horses have stats at least equal to the "wonder horses" with group 1 wins up the wazoo that are posted on the boards here. I can't even get a purchased horse (one not bred by me) to win a group 1. I'm just frustrated and confused because there seems to be a wall blocking the way to group 1 D: I also keep running into the problem where a horse will win race after race (non graded races), but as soon as I enter them into a grade 3 race or above, they fail constantly. Any advice? Or is it just plain luck and I'll just have to continue on my path of trying and failing? I can provide some screenshots of any of my current horses, in case anybody wants to see them. Help? :c
(I have the US version of SO4, by the way, in case that matters)

stat bars mean nothing my friend you can get 2 horses with same stat bars 1 poor and the other a superstar so ignore stat bars just a minor indication

its very hard to find a game horse that is g1 material apart from the 2yo in auction at end of year
you need to concentrate on buying 2yo's the ones that cost 450k+ there are g1 horses there its finding them you might buy
8 2yo at £450000+ most of them will be naff but you should find a g1 horse.

once 1 of your 2yo you buy wins a g1 retire to stud straight away and bred with game mares and stallions

its all down to breeding but you need a heathly bank balance to do that once you have money start breeding and
cover your horses with the best game horses in breeding barn after a few seasons of breeding
you will not only get regular g1 winners you will start to find superstars

i would say you will need 3,000,000 to start buying 2yo and start up your breeding operation
i only breed g1 winners with g1 winners if you breed with lesser horses they will produce lesser horses

Thanks for the advice! I've got plenty of money (my younger horses seem to sell for 400k+ unraced lately) so I'll start checking out the more expensive horses and breeding to better ones. Is there a certain race length preference in 2 yos that I should look for, or does that matter? Should I look for a wide range of lengths, or should I hone down and stick with just sprinters or just stayers? I have one game where I'm breeding for 5-7f sprinters, and another where I'm breeding for 1m3f+ stayers.

Huh! I start a new game so I can start fresh, and what do you know, one of my starter horses manages to win a G1!

Ha ha

Dont we just love horse racing!!!

If you can do that then so can i haha, i got my first G1 in ages, earlier... im due a few more G1's im on a dry patch just now

I bred one of my starter G3s and now I have two G1 winners from her. Weird that this happens not even a day after I post a thread complaining about not winning G1s xD I've had much better luck with 2-3yo fillies than with colts so far, all of my colts have been duds but my fillies are rocking it!

LooL I have found that too. My stable stars have all be fillies and now suffer a lack of good stallions to breed from

Nice one on the G1 success.. long may it continue

I just got my first Group 1 winner today great feeling! I like the little fireworks display when the race ends lol

congrats, Its brilliant when you get ya first G1... i never get fireworks sayin that i don't even have commentary anymore its just sorta vanished ha.

nice 1 dap

I didn't get to see mine, I skipped through the race because I wasn't expecting that horse to get even close to winning first place xD

I hope we have something else instead of fireworks for winning a Group 1 in SO5, a few different things would be nice.

If memory serves right (im not playing right now), you can watch the replay and still get the fireworks? I may be wrong though?