I am happy to report that season 12/Year 12 has been my first successful crop to race. I've had numerous G3 winners in their second race and even a G2 winner. Still struggling for that G1 win. Though some of my broodmares have produced G1/G2 winners (the ones I sold at auction), so I am kind of bummed but I needed the cash to get the breeding program rolling. I find breeding fascinating but also a tad "shot in the dark" chance. Especially since I don't have my first stallion at stud yet so I breed to the best speed form/G1-G2 winning stallions--and you can't see their stats. So you have to go solely off of the progress racing chart, the graded wins, and the timeforms. I have a lot of breeding mares out of G2/G1 winners bought at auction, but the most special buy was a dumpy looking mare who was not sired by a graded winner and I got her cheap.

She has since produced all triple digit children, graded winners in all levels. The first three foals out of her all sold 2mil at auction as new two year olds. I currently have her two year old who I plan to keep for breeding named Last Laff (Laffan/Alexander Phantom). I like the pun of his name. Most of my other mares seem to be hit/miss.

Do you get excited when the new year rolls around? I do.

That is great news

It wont be long til you breed your first Group 1 winner

Always excited at the start of each year and to see what my new horses might achieve.
I am a few months into a new season and my new 3yos - are showing big potential - two of them have already won Group 1 Derby and an Oaks between them so I'm quite happy about that
My new 2yo's have started well but I have to wait a couple more virtual months before the Group races come up.

I have two Grade 1 winners now. Last Laff is now a 120 speedform and my filly, Stardom Bound, has a speedform of 116. The rest of my kids are mostly G3 ranked runners/winners who occasionally do Ok at G2. The only annoying thing is now Last Laff is being a bad boy and keeps getting the comments of "won't settle", but I don't want to geld him. I just hope he gets over his tantrums and I won't have to retire him to stud early because with his "won't settle" his performances are lacking.

I also got my first comment of "The horse sounded a little loud breathing today." So I treated the horse with a wind operation. The more horses in my barn, the more injuries my horses seem to come up with (in training, randomly when the AI trains them). The biggest one I had lasted 20wks or more with a luxation. So she got sidelined for most of the season.

Entering is also getting longer and longer to do now that I have close to 30 horses in my barn. I don't mind it, but I'm picky with entering my horses in fields I know they will do Ok on and sometimes I can't find fields to run them in so I have to sideline them another month or so.


Do you go with any whacky names for your babies?

I think the silliest ones I've come up with is Windmill Lives Matter (by Quixote), Who Ate My Crackers (by Captain Crackers), and Charlie Bit Me (Indian Charlie).

Now you're on your way
Ignore the "wont settle" and just keep racing him. I think if you actually train the horses then you might be able to make a difference but not on auto train. If you click on your stable there is an option to hire someone who helps 'relax' horses before a race....it's costly though but once you start winning Group races often it's an easy cost to absorb - but you'll still keep getting "wont settle".

Yep, that's what happens when you start breeding - MORE HORSES
It is a juggle! I wish I could get it back to 30 lol - I think I have around 55>60 horses now and yes you get a lot more injuries!
Entering races does take a lot longer now and keeping track of horses abilities as well. (do you know if you hover your arrow over a horse's name and then press ' N ' a box for notes appear?)

Sooner or later you will start making it stricter to breed - a horse will have to meet a certain calibre or criteria.
I started with Group winners and the odd good Listed winner - then it got crazy so I upped it to Group 1 winners - then that got crazy so I lifted the bar to a minimum of 5 Group 1 wins and now I am wondering if I lift the bar again? lol

With horses names.....I suppose I'm a bit of a traditionalist lol so I usually try to incorporate both sire and mares names. It also helps me keep track of breeding.
I have one sire who's name is Va Vavoom - so I've had a bit of fun naming his kids

:O I didn't know about the notes to appear! I know about pressing N during a race. I've noticed the past two seasons that the pre-selection auction of two year olds are drastically reduced to like 5 to pick from and the season before there was maybe 10 stallions overall to choose from. Does the game just go through ups and downs? Or is it because I'm breeding more two year olds so the creation AI adjusts? o-o

I try to stay traditional too but sometimes I use a theme name/pun/tv show/series. I had 30-ish two year olds to look through for the new season and sold off 20. I have to get super picky now, especially since two year old races are scarce. Coupled with the 10 two year olds I kept, I have 30 overall horses in my stable now. It is definitely a juggling act!

Another small annoyance is when I sell off horses who become graded winners, I rarely see them at auction to buy back, usually I get the notification of "retired", but at least I get offered a breeding so it's a little bit of good feedback.

What happens when you press N during a race? There is so much to learn about this game lol

I think you are right about the 2yo auctions. I noticed that too - when I couldn't or could just afford to buy the most expensive 2yos, there seemed to be quite a few but most seasons now there is only 2 or 3. Although in saying that, at the start of this season there were about 5. I tend to think that as we breed more the game gives us less top end horses to buy.

With my breeding I just breed with horses I have raced - just my little quirk
30ish 2yos would do my head in......no wonder you sell them off lol
But that would freak me out as well.....I'd have to race them - it would kill me watching a horse I bred win big races lol

I start culling horses from late 3yo onwards. Near the end of their 5th year if they're not winning Group 1 races then I retire them from the game.
Horses that are left til 6yo are either on the verge of making my minimum to breed with or champs that are still rocking it for their last season.

It does kill me when I see those I sold off become 118+ G3-G1 winners. Then I scour the auctions every thurs to see if the AI puts them to sell. Sadly it rarely happens, but I get a breeding at the end, so I guess it's a small payback. I breed a lot so I have more to chose from, my stock is now fully G3+ mares with good stats. The stud fees are getting a bit pricey, breeding to the tops at 400-500k baby a pop. I do make it back in return sales, but that's still a chunk of change at each breeding. I don't have a perfect horse yet, but I have some close ones I'm happy with. Those that you know whenever you send out to the track they will finish in the Top 3. I also cull at 3, those who are still slow to get going and no hopes of getting a graded win in sight.

I did read a discussion about how sometimes a horse looks good on paper but the race results say different. I've had those horses where potential is 70-80 as 2yos, but at 3 they are still running 85-90's and it's a tad disappointing.

Pressing N during a race pops up their names. Sometimes it's a tad choppy for me so depending upon the race's screen play I may enable to disable it.

Well I suppose your next step from here is to get a multiple Group 1 winner and then to get a horse you have bred to win overseas

Do you play with Jumpers? I want to get into a Jumping game but I'm afraid I'm a bit novice on what some of the races entail and what horses are good for what race types. I see there are flat races, hurdles and chases. What stats am I looking for in a hurdler/jumper? Maybe a horse that is minimally Average in both Jump/Agility? What about chases?

I haven't done any serious jumps racing - I think it's only for the English and Irish tracks.
I guess you'd just look for similar abilities as you flat horses but with good jump and agility stats. I think those stats would cover hurdles and steeplechase.
I guess you'd be focusing on horses who's average best distances would be 2800m+
I hope that is a start for you.
My advice is to just "jump in" and go for it