a few weeks

Start a new game on easy setting. Easy gives you 5 horses and has nothing to do with game AI. Hard will give you 3 horses.

Look at those 5 horses stats. Mainly the potential bar. If you have a horse with 85+ potential then you have a horse you can race and most likely race in stakes company. Keep starting new games until you find a good horse like this. It may take a few restarts or 50 restarts. Luck of the draw.

Auction the remaining 4 horses. Skip the auction day. DO NOT attend the auction and watch your horses being sold. By skipping the auction day your horses are all sold and you get much more money. You'll have around 2 to 5 million usually.

Do your thing with that horse you kept and visit the auctions for better stock

How do you know if you are playing online?

Playing online is different to playing single player.
Single player you play at anytime night or day on your computer.
To play online in the league, you need to register and submit your horses/stable for the league.

Once you are registered for the league season - once a week you will enter your horses into races (these are horses that you have sent their files into 'TOM' before the start of the league season)
It will all sound very confusing now but once you get the hang of your single player game and then breeding your own horses....it will make more sense.

Go into the online forum and have a look around. You'll see posts titled 'Monday Races' 'Tuesday Races' 'Wednesday Races' Click on those posts and click on the links inside and you will be able to watch the latest online races. Early next week you will be able to watch the Cheltenham Carnival Races and The Arc as well.

But for now enjoy playing your single player game - it is a lot of fun...get it up and running then work on your breeding. There is now a ton of info on breeding in the 'General' and 'Online' forums or just post up a question and someone will always reply.

Cheers

Doug

Heres a little tip, when you create a new game sell all your horses including your 2 year olds, you will make just over 1mil, buy a breeding barn, then go to the weekly auctions and find some decent horses, keep a few for racing and send the rest to the breeding barn and breed with them and you will get a some 2 year olds, they won't be the best but you can sell them on for some more money.