I thought the stamina bar would decide best distance? But how far up the bar is each distance in flats and which jockey notes after the race hint at a longer trip?

Is the breeding indicator distance normally close?

I'm no expert but I tend to go off the average breeding distance. I will tend to run anything up to a best breeding distance of 1m4f as a 2 year old.

Anything 5f, 6f, 7f I will first try over 5f.
1m - 1m1f, I will try first at 6f
1m2f, usually try first at 7f or a mile.
Anything over that I start at 1m2f.

If a horse is bred for further there's no point running it until 1m4f maidens/novices become available which is in their 3yo season.

By galloping your horses at home you can also get a feeling for any unusual ones in your pack. It's not unheard of for a horse with average best breeding distance of 1m4f to mix it on the gallops with the 5 and 6f horses. You would never find this out though unless you gallop them. You can also gallop over different distances, on different surfaces. When galloping them also choose a reliable older horse to gallop them with (even as lead horse this works) as this compares the 2yo's ability to the horse in question. But don't get too downbeat if the older horse hammers them on the gallops as all horses carry the same weight on the gallops and 2yo's are physically more immature (hence the weight for age used in all age races such as the Nunthorpe Stakes).

Hope that helps a bit?

Howdy

Ok first thing, the "Breeding Indicator" is very rough at best. Can sometimes be right, often wrong. There are a number of reasons for this i wont go into.

The Stamina is better, it rises in increments of 11%.
So at 11% i will try the horse at 5f-6f.
22% will be 7f
33% at 8f
44% at 10f
55% at 10-12f
After this it gets a little general
66% can be 12f+
88% anywhere from 12-16f
100% for any further

Next thing is to hire a jockey with good feedback. His post race comments will give you a good idea of how the horse handled the distance.
Comments like "lacked pace" means try a longer distance.

I watch how the horse runs. If you see the jockey giving the horse the hurry up when all the others are just cruising can mean he doesnt have the race speed and try a longer distance.
If the horse cruises easily and then gives a burst a couple of furlongs before the post then runs out of gas, possibly try a shorter distance.

Its all a bit of a mystery but trying the distances either side of the status bar will normally find its best distance.
Of course this can also change during a season.

Cheers

If you export a horse to the CK you can choose a distance for a race and then apply the distance filter. The game will filter your exports to have the horses it thinks fit the distance you have chosen. You may have to search the distances a little to find the right filter for a certain horse.How accurate this is I don't know.

I applied this method to my league team. Here is what I got. The Distance Range column is the distance range filters the horse appears in. The Ave. Breeding Distance column is the breeding indicator from the horse summary.

I have a slightly different way to the above methods, but again based off the stamina bar. It works for about 90% of my horses with a 1f margin of error for the other 10%. I am playing a default US Flat schedule, so not sure if or how this affects things. I round to the nearest 5% on the stamina bar, which gives me a good idea of the distances. When multiple are listed at an increment it's because most of my horses can run all without major issues, even without a large adaptability bar. These increments are also the only ones I see in my game and I have seen no others.

10% = 5/6f
20% = 7f/1m
55% = 1m1f/1m2f
85% = 1m2f/1m3f
90% = 1m3f/1m4f/1m5f/1m6f

I have had quite a few successful 6f sprinters, as well as 1m/1m1f/1m2f runners who were special. Rarely do we have anything over that range, but that is partly due to schedule and partly the breeding pool I usually end up with. Any good horses to breed that have longer distances I usually use with the 6f monsters to breed horses able to compete at a Triple Crown level (Kentucky Derby 1m2f, Preakness Stakes ~1m1f, and the Belmont/Brooklyn Stakes 1m4f).

For some reason this happens. I had a long running game and the 44% and 66% disappeared. I dont know if it had to do with mostly breeding within my own stable.
In my current game i am using the game bred stallions all the time and i have all stamina distances.

You have some great input to digest there!

My personal best 'how to' is to look through the jockeys for the highest honesty bars (90-100%), put them in weight order from low to high. Then make a note of the other stats, skill is important and can't remember the other to do with taking orders. Once you have a list you can rate them in order and choose those to ride your horses. If the bars are not lying they will tell you if the horse need less or further, this can also be said a little more obtusely by saying the horse didn't have the pace for the race in which case next time out step it up a furlong. Some jockeys seem to be more forthcoming so try a few out to find the chatty ones.

It get's even worse over jumps. I have a stayer on the flat with almost full stamina bar that doesn't get a yard over 2m jumping and would have thought them to be 3m+. Again you need honest jockeys to nail it down.

I remember when the bars where introduced and Mark said they were just a guide. Maybe the game has moved on to a point where the guide is not that good anymore, wouldn't want such a guide to go hill climbing or potholing.

More with this version i've realised that the distance giving is literally a guide. I've had horses run much further than the average distance given. It took me about a season to realise i had a wrong distance on a horse. Was breed for 1m 1f and showing nothing but started back at 5f and it turned out to be a 6f sprinter so don't be afraid to try things. I also try to use the speed icon for a little help also.