Hi all, I’ve been away from the forum for a while and have just got around to buying SO7 . I have played for about 6 or 7 seasons to get a feel for the game and one thing I have found on the breeding side, that even though stallions are breeding for more than one season which was my biggest bugbear in SO6 there doesn’t seem to be any stand out stallions like a Galileo, or any of the classic winners becoming good stallions, it still seems to be a be random. I might be a early in the game and it might change latter, but as I have a interest in the breeding side of racing I was hoping what then it comes to the classics you start to see a lot of the best horses breed from the top stallions.I would be interesting what is the view of others .

I think that unless Mark implements a hidden breeding stat, where say only one in 1000 horses with great stats/potential has the highest breeding stat then I think this will never be the case. I have horses breeding multiple G1 winners, but there are many in the game, all will have high potential with it being randomly passed on.

Not that I'm complaining about the current breeding, far from it. I just don't see super sires being part of the game currently.

It would be great to get to a point where we see the Galileo, Fastnet Rock, Sadlers Wells, Deep Impact style of Stallion that can compliment the Mares we breed, as you pay the stallions fees so some type of reward for breeding should be given.. I love the game i support it no matter what, so thats just a wish i would hope that would happen.

I'm quite enjoying the breeding if not a little bit frustrating.

but i guess it is abit like real life, many would say Frankel hasnt been a great sire (i disagree) but many people say that, and not all great horses make great sires.

in my game currently there was a horse called Retrieve, i must have won billions gambling him, he ran around 60 races in his career, lost 2 and won the rest majority group 1 races i believe he won around 35-40 group ones, i cant check now as he went to stud at a fee of over £1m per cover. i managed to breed alot of good mares to him over that year and ended up with 1 half decent horse which managed a group 2, the rest are trotting around wolverhampton on a thursday night in a class 6 handicap.

he was retired from stud after 1 season. never leaving any significat impression for the best horse i have seen on a starters orders game.

however i have 1 horse currently now 13 in the stud, he won 6 group 1s a couple of group 2's wasn't anything you would class as special, could never really win the biggest of races, however retired at 6 now 13, he has sired 64 group 1 wins, 36 group 2 wins and 31 group 3 wins, not many of his horses if any i can see are rated less than 100, i find this year although frustrating with how inconsistant some breeding can be, a challange and a nice upgrade.

Sounds absolutely ridiculous and this along with the seeming lack of improvement anywhere else in the game is stopping me from buying it. I have not played but from what I gather by posters on here, its so6 with a new lottery breeding system and pedgree history.

i think in general, im not saying its a lottery, im saying its more in depth, having to actually find horses that make good sires,

for example last night, i have a horse great breeding bars look great, he cant win, plain and simple cant win, i sold him, ended up buying him back to see if anything would change, it didnt, so i thought let me try him as a sire, he has 4 yearlings and all the stats look unbelievable, yet to get them on the track but we will see, all indications to me with the first 4 is that maybe he wasnt great on the track but will make an incredible sire,

this happens in real life and to me makes it more fun to try and find the combinations that work, im sticking to this game and enjoying it more as on SO6 breed 2 monsters together get a monster and win all the races, after 2 seasons it was boring, im finding that getting horses that dont live up to their bars and finding good sires etc is all part of it, finding horses that havent done it yet in auctions and building them through handicaps and listed and actually making group horses out of a horse you bought rated 30-40, i have to say its a great game and much better than SO6, yes i have yet to have a horse that is ala Frankel, black caviar, winx, that mops everything up, but thats the challange for me, trying to breed that now, where in so6 i had that every season, its boring, at least now it adds more into it, you have to study it more.

i honestly would advise anyone to buy it and stick at it and really start to find your own path with it

I think the breeding is outstanding, it's tougher than 6 but more fun. It makes u think about breeding and u have a clue about the game stallions with the stats. It's a stat paradise, a mini championship manager.

i agree - i really enjoy the more in depth nature - finding a good sire - finding out you great horse may not be a great sire - theres more to this game and i love that - finding the bloodlines that usually get decent horses and buying at auction - finding those new bloodlines to breed with your - everything about it i enjoy and its keeping me interested trying to find the great sires and get as many good horses from them as possible.

i have taken this game far more serious than any previous where every time i bred i got 20 group winning runners,

im actually entering some horses into handicaps and trying to plot a big race win in a handicap, which is exactly like real life its not all group 1 winners.

In real life great racehorses quite often make good to excellent sires and dams, inasmuch as they produce a reasonable percentage of top quality winners - but there are also relatively unknown sires and dams that produce unexpectedly great winners, and even the top sires produce duds.... in fact you don't have to look too deeply to find siblings of great racehorses that struggle to ever win even moderate races. In other words breeding top notch sires with top notch dams probably gives you a moderate to good chance, at some expense, of breeding a good horse. You can also find some brilliant racehorses in the history of racing whose sire and dam were pretty average themselves - genes skip generations, and brothers and sisters in humans are often very different in abilities to each other, the same for horses.

It's all part of the fun.
(In real life as well as in game).
Dave

Breeding in this game slowly and progressively sucks out your will to live and basically makes me go and play something else.

Josh

I don't find that at all. For me, it's probably the best part of SO7. I love the challenge of it, and the fact that it's unpredictable in a realistic way.