Ok, I'm playing a combined game using the stock schedule. I have trimmed my stable size down to 82 horses in training due to the severe shortcoming of the stock schedule. I am enjoying this save, but, and here is the crux of the gripe. Once you reach a certain amount of horses, somewhere between 50 & 70, and then anywhere above that, you have nowhere to run your run of the mill horses, or progressive types. I have a hurdler rated 93 who just gets 2 miles, at a squeak in a poor race will get 2 miles 2, and I am at the end of October trying to find a race for this horse (the problem is not just this horse, but this one is the example I am using) There is 1 0-140 handicap hurdle over 2 miles in the entirety of November, and 1 Grade 3 handicap. That's it. There's 20 or so seller or claiming races, and 2 or 3 Graded non handicaps, but just 1 handicap of any grade. Where can you run your horses? There are no novice chases at 2 miles apart from 2 graded novice races. This goes on and on at all distances.

I know people are going to say ' download so and so's schedule' but this entirely misses the point. The game should be up to scratch, and it isn't, it fails miserably. And, if I use someone's schedule I have to start again from scratch despite having an otherwise nice save with a nice group of horses nurtured over 3 or 4 seasons. I play very slowly, always manual training and I do enjoy the game, hence I play most days, until I get annoyed at the lack of opportunities, then I go off and play something else.

Surely Mark can input some sort of code to generate sufficient races for the lower class horses. It's nice to win a Graded race, but the biggest majority of horses are not up to that standard. There should be sufficient races for EVERY horse. I don't play for the glory, I play for the enjoyment.

Sensible replies would be great. Anyone going to jump down my throat for once again speaking out about a problem that has been ongoing for several incarnations of the game, please don't bother, I can go back and read the previous threads where you have done this.

I honestly believe this to be a reasonable request.

I agree entirely. Everybody will have an individual goal in playing this game and winning big races with homebred horses is the obvious one. I have yet to achieve that - but when I do, I am certain it will feel no different really to the sense of achievement I felt in winning lesser races in my early playing days. I think it is a huge shame that the game has such a big gap in race opportunities between sellers/claimers and class 3. I am always very happy to see a six year old horse romp home in a class 5, when that horse was bred from two old favourites and was for a long time as a two year old earmarked for the scrap heap. To have kept him and nurtured him through bumpers, novice hurdles and even a couple of sellers on his way to a 75 rating is an achievement, and is the heart and soul of the game.

But as you point out it is the next level of horse that has nowhere to go. And you get more 93 rated horses (that you use as an example), the more you spend on breeding. This I think is the crux of the matter. Two seasons ago I upped my breeding to 100 foals every April, in search of a star. But already I can see that I will have nowhere to run many of these better horses I have produced, so today funnily enough (before seeing your post) I decided to start pegging this back again. And I didn't find a star anyway !! Two things personal to me - I don't enjoy playing the numbers game, and I don't like having to enter three or four horses into the same race.

Like you I don't want to play with mods because I am too far into the one and only game of SO7 I have played. I know there are some very well thought of mods available but my opinion is also skewed by the fact I have used mods in other games I play outside of SO7 and they sometimes cause stability problems. I suffer enough crashes on SO7 as it is and can't start to think about adding to that problem.

I guess I am something of a veteran of strategy/management games, having played them for twenty years now. SO7 is compelling but if I have a single wish from my 1200 hours of playing, it would be a bigger race calendar for the good but not great horses. Put that in place and you have a huge new dimension of gameplay. Not necessarily needed by those who want to chase the biggest prizes but a boon to those who play in a slow and detailed way. And most important of all, something that keeps newer players warm at night as they try to fathom out the best way to play this game.

Couldn't have put it better myself, I don't think it's asking too much, just opportunities for all.

I get frustrated with the default schedules at times but still find enough races throughout the year to keep things interesting with a stable of perhaps 20-30 horses. This may just be on the US flat schedule however as my efforts in the UK and Jumps are fleeting and mainly on SO6. I do really enjoy the Start It mod for the increased realism with track locations, improved courses, and more competitive scheduling, but I would hope the base game could be more accurate with those points without mods. I understand some issues with licensing can occur but it's always a little disappointing to see mods having to be installed in order to play the game as it should be.

With 20-30 horses there are sufficient races, however, once you get up over 50, and especially, as I do, get 100-150 horses, then there are woefully too few races to go around. As the game is advertised as being able to have a stable up to 512 horses, and you can buy, as I have, 512 stabling spaces in game, it is kind of ridiculous that there are then no races to run them all in. The stock game needs, maybe even on a slider scale so you can have less if you want, more handicaps and maidens at all distances and all grade of handicap from 0-45 up to 0-150 on the jumps and 0-120 on the flat, and it's a lot more not just a handful here and there. The schedule has not be rewritten for several episodes of the game, it's had a little tinkering here and there, and it is now, in SO7, too far behind that it spoils the game once your stable size grows.

Please Mark, I don't want to play league, I don't want to run through season after season trying to breed monsters, I just want to play one save at my own pace with a large stable of horses of all capabilities where the biggest majority are run of the mill handicappers or progressive types. Yes I want to be fortunate to find or breed a top class horse, but I want that to be the exception not the rule, as it is in my save, but I do need more races for the stable.

Catering for all the game ambitions of so many different players is a real challenge for the developer, especially when mods are brought into the equation. I sometimes smile when reading things posted by people describing themselves as newbies - in a very short period of time they are further on than I was after 750 hours of playing ! It is a fact that for some, SO7 is a less long term time investment, a game they will enjoy but not to the degree of dropping most other games as I have. For some, they need quick results in terms of breeding and big race wins in order to engage with the product. I have no issues with that, but like you neves_rats, hope that those playing an opposite style are also catered for.

The point you make about the 512 stable capacity is particularly relevant. It is there as a feature and therefore should be playable. I also like the point about sliding scales so players can either engage in micro raceplay or not. More race opportunities would require perhaps another race or two per meeting. The game also needs more AI horses. Playing a slower game, I get pretty fed up of racing against the sames horses over and over again. These AI horses are real machines - goodness knows how they run so often with seemingly little rest ! I think I did read that increasing the number of horses in the game could lead to problems for players with older laptops so again a sliding scale might put that right. I am sure this is wishful thinking on our parts, but I am happy to keep banging the drum on long haul non mod playing style. I do wonder how many others there are like us out there. There is rarely much support for your ideas (sounds better than your description of gripes!) but that could be because those players are too wrapped up running large stables to have time to post on the forum.

Or perhaps they have given up on the game? Not everyone uses the forums, there will be plenty who have bought the game, SO7 or an earlier version, found it lacking in certain areas, and, as you said, moved on to another game to never return. It is only because I am addicted to horse racing games (I am a reformed ex-addicted punter) that I cannot stop playing. I thoroughly enjoy the game, to a point, and it is this 'to a point' that makes me stop every day after just playing 3 or 4 days through sheer frustration at nowhere to run my horses (I enter my horses into their next race the day after they run as I have found it the easiest way to keep tabs on a hundred or more horses)

Yes I have to do the same - if there is a race available that is !! I declare them, leave on orange training, and then up to red the day the jaded message disappears.

What would make things easier is a race yard that has sections - declared horses on one page, two year olds on another, special training on another, perhaps even one for jumps and one for flat. It would mean moving between pages but would be so much easier. I know there are filters at the moment, but they don't always put horses where you want them. I also have to have my yard in its present format set with declared runners at the bottom upwards so I know whats in the pipeline. I guess I spend so much time looking at that page that I know roughly in my head where each horse is, but sometimes I just can't find a horse for looking. None of this is relevant if you run just 35-40 horses but I can't believe many long term players have many fewer than we do. It is part of the hooking that this game has - the need to have more bites at the cherry. And in our cases, it makes the game much much longer the more horses you have to deal with.

It is good to share ideas with like minded players and hopefully it takes away some of the frustration. I see you have the full allowance of 512. I was thinking about that after I read it. I have a real problem binning horses so I think I might just put them in a field to grow old rather than taking them out of the game. I don't sell yearlings but do sell what I think are the worst of my 2yo each year. Even some of them go on to win over £100k which brasses me off big style, given I have seen their stats. I recently sold a 10 year old homebred stallion that had only won two sellers in 30 races, and spent a lot of time in his career with a sicknote. I had enough eventually and sold him, and should have been suspicious when he went for £21k. He was immediately gelded by the new trainer and a week later won £30k after finishing first in a featured race. To make things worse, my horse in that race was favourite and finished second ! Anyway, the real lesson is I should have gelded him. But I also probably don't like selling horses I have owned from birth to ten years, so I think I will go 512 and just leave them in that field. It's a bit different with flat racers as I don't seem to get as attached to them, and it is easier to see when they are going downhill.

Immediately after a run I put the horse on green, especially if it has a lot of condition to make up and then look at the races available over the next month or so. If there is another race relatively soon, i.e. within 14 days or so, then as soon as the condition bar hits near enough the top again I put the horse on amber if there are more than 11 days until its next entry. Once a horse is 11 days from a run I put it on red to get the fitness bar to full and then preferably 2 days before their race I drop them back to amber as you wouldn't be over working a horse just prior to a race. If there is no appropriate race, or, if condition (the left hand of the 2 condition bars) has dropped too far, as it varies between horses, a race takes more out of some horses than others, I will then leave the horse on green so it can recover condition, checking now and then in case there is a race that it really shouldn't miss. If fitness has dropped considerably due to recovering condition, then a longer period on red training is needed. Multiply this by a hundred and it explains why I play slowly. This is also why it's so frustrating when there is no races at all that suit a horse within an entire calendar month or more.

I never trial horses, it takes as much out of a horse as a race does for no prize money, so I trust a race to tell me what I need to know. Like yourself, I get attached to horses and can recall from memory distances and vagaries most horses have or need. I have my stable listed in age order, I don't know why, I just always have. Having them like you do, in order of days to next run, sounds so sensible that I may have to try it.

Also, like yourself, I hate discarding horses that have run for me, but some pruning is necessary, I recently went down from 130 horses to 82 in one go and got rid of all the horses that I thought had gone as far as I could take them, but you're right, the AI trainers always seem to be able to drag more out of a horse than us mere mortals. Conversely, when you buy a decent group or listed winner from the sales it invariably goes backwards and its form regresses . Oh the joys of the game

Sounds like you are even more micro than I am with training. When I tried something similar to you, especially lowering training just before a race, I kept getting horses showing just below full fitness on race day. Mind, that was a while ago and I have probably improved my game play since, so I should re-visit it. I may be better at it now.

Pruning horses is easier said than done. I am reminded of the old analogy about how long it takes to turn a liner around and sail in completely the opposite direction. I am trying very hard to reduce numbers, but seem to be keeping more average looking 2yo flats because when I sell similar ones they seem to do pretty well. I am strictly keeping to breeding a 100 foals a year - if I go over that it will be impossible to control.

You are right about buying grade winners from auction - often useless for racing and breeding. I guess in real life trainers don't give up very good horses, so I accept that. I have picked up some very useful mid rated stallions though - 4yo and 5yo, maximum 6yo - even some that have been dropped to seller level and cost £50k or so. Not always good in first season I buy them as usually raced out, but in second season onwards I often get good wins at C2 level with them for a few years - some are very progressive. I guess in the fullness of things I only just get my money back, but these sorts actually form the backbone of my racing yard.

I only gallop 2yo, once in Feb and once in Mar at 5f. Sprinters I then race or sell, and agree the best way to judge them is on the course. 2yo destined for the jumps get up to 5 or 6 gallops throughout that year, building up to max distance of 1m 2f. Some really start to develop between Apr and Oct - I love this part of the game, and running them as 3yo and 4yo. Shame that only a few develop beyond that but as you say - oh the joys of the game !

I do often wonder if I go too deep into this manual training malarkey, but, I find the game enjoyable playing it this way, but frustrating due to the lack of opportunities for the horses in my stable.

I can see how the game is possibly near perfect for the players that are purely looking to breed and find monsters and maybe don't feel any great attachment to their stable, it's a means to an end, I don't know. Those on easy training, their horses are always fit and ready to run, but I find this would be wholly unrealistic so have never tried as I am not purely in the game to win races, though it's nice when you do. I like the immersion, the game is somewhere to lose oneself for a while, for a small slot in the world you become a racehorse trainer, and part of the job of being a trainer is training your horses. It's not an exact science, and neither should it be. You begin to learn the little foibles and quirks your horses have, and trying to eke a little 0-65 handicap out of a horse can be rewarding but only if you can find such a race for your lower class or rated horses, and therein lies the problem and we've gone full circle and at that point each day in my gameplay I close the game and go play 'The Golf Club 2019' or 'Overcrowd: A Commute em Up Game' or even 'Elite Dangerous' or any of the other 20-30 games I have on Steam, when in reality I would prefer to keep playing SO7 but it annoys the hell out of me for reasons stated in this thread.

It's a long running 'gripe' or whatever people want to call it, it has been a stumbling block for many episodes of the game. As I said earlier in the thread, some players, how many? who knows? will have merely given up and gone and found something else to occupy their time, in this day and age there is no shortage of alternatives. Hopefully it will be adjusted in this version of the game, I believe it should be so that the potential it is sold as having can be realised. I know I physically can have 512 horses in my stable, but where would they run? Would I have to have 5 or 6 runners in each appropriate race to find slots for them, thereby racing against myself? It is frustrating.

The game is so good, if it wasn't I wouldn't keep coming back, but something needs doing to the stock schedule to address these shortfalls.

I am going to have a stab and say the stock schedule just about satisfies 80 horses in a combined flat/jumps game with a 30/50 split. My race stable went over these numbers some way and this is when the frustration set in, and I am manfully trying to get back down to those levels, against my will. I still had to run more than one horse in a race at 80 (which I would prefer not to do). I agree that more races for lower rated horses that are better than sellers would make SO7 the finest there is.

I also have a number of other options, games I have enjoyed for very long spells. But I do find it difficult to flit around and tend to play the same game non stop until I eventually decide I have had enough. I have played SO7 for nine months or so now - nowhere near a record for me, and I still have plenty of challenges left. I haven't and couldn't play without the training - it is such a crucial part of the gameplay. And the longer I play the more I learn, and increasingly I am getting less hung up with horse stats as they show on the front screen. Hidden stats are more useful but even then can mislead. You only find out about a horse on the racecourse, and when you get a better one, that becomes the new standard that you want to breed to and beyond. Like you, I don't care how long it takes to regularly win the big races. In a funny way the longer the better. Being handed a monster without the hard work would not satisfy me.

Even given our style of play (and I still think we are in the minority), if we decided to ditch every horse that was unable to win at C2 level and above, we would zoom through a season pretty quickly. I guess that is what many players do, and enjoy. And they possibly don't have the time available to play long haul as we do. As you have rightly said before though, the 512 horse limit should mean the option is there.

I want to be careful in saying this, but maybe there are too many selling and claiming races in the stock schedule? What is your view ? If say, a third of those races were C5 or C6 it would cater for 100ish horses and be a more absorbing game. I can live with putting more than one horse into fewer sellers or claimers - racing against each other to keep a place in the yard kind of thing. Probably some bumpers could also go - again I don't mind declaring more than one horse in a NH flat race as these are development races (though great fun to win). Obviously the make up of the AI horse pool would need to change with more C5 and C6 races taking their place and I am not sure how easily done that is. I guess it may have been discussed on here before. I suspect also this would only partially help you - I think you would operate at the full 512 !!

I don't have as many frustrations on the flat - there are plenty of novices and maidens for 2yo, and the next season is a different kettle of fish and then it is becoming clearer as to which horses are going to go onwards and upwards. I don't run very many after 5yo in sellers - they either go to breeding, auction or retirement.

Whilst my ambitions for more available races are largely selfish, I do also see them as beneficial to the well being of SO7. Its most redeeming feature is accuracy with the real horse racing world. Therefore it would seem realistic to have more stepping stone opportunities on the way to stardom. I think a lot of new players give up early and go back to other gaming options because the progress path in SO7 is not entirely right, and they wrongly conclude they are not doing things the correct way. Because I did not use the well known shortcut to get loads of money quickly, it took me many seasons to even get a stiff of a chance at C3 level. It seemed to take an age and I could easily have given up on the basis that the game was beyond me. C5 and C6 wins occasionally (if more races had existed) would have bridged the gap. Eventually things do fall into place, and that is all part of the immersion.

Near identical to what I do except I go 12 days. Some low constitution bar horses still don't get as fit as I like at 12 days. But that is what I do with developing and high handicap horses. Once a horse is a consistent black-type runner I schedule it via the Diary and then a long constitution bar can come in handy.


I gallop for several reasons. Early to sort horses with no good race yet, and also to beef up the fitness on a horse that looks like it may not get ready in time for its race. It may confer some bonus, as I have had horses that I exercised to fit them for a specific race put out an oddly good performance in only the races I did that (even though the text said they were always fit each time). I wish a solid gallop work would increase potential (converting the low bar up to the max bar). Theoretically it should. It doesn't from what I can tell, only the first four races of each calendar season.


Sort by next run date is the only way I can stay sane once I have upwards of 50 horses in training.


That's why I gallop them against each other if I need. Have to do it enough days out from the race that they are not jaded. That and the barn has to be big enough to have a good exercise partner. And there is a long history in real racing to having a workout stable mate (and a rabbit stable mate for the race day if needed too!).


I have to give myself a soft cap of 50. Soft, since if I see a prize mare at auction I may buy it and breed that season, but still I never get over 55 then. I also have had some luck finding decent animals when pinhooking. In a new saves usually my first graded winners are pinhook prospects I decided I could afford to keep. So my yearling count is usually closer to 60 since I still browse yearling sales in game all through a save.


This is one part where I wish doing gallop prep would help nudge the potential bar. Right now game mechanics penalizes you using a horse bred without a near full bar for jumps without racing it on the flat first to try to fill in that bar each season. It should be good for me to be bringing my horse along at home and only racing them when they are ready. Now I have to race them unready to get them ready. That feels wrong to me. And when that means having to use 2&3 yr old flat season for 8 shots at bumping the bar up for a horse I'm sure should jump, hmm, isn't avoiding that what the UK NH system is about anyway?

So I'm trying a new experiment in my next save. I tried having a flat and a jumps save and moving horses from flat to jumps as needed. But I didn't like that as well as having them all in a combo schedule game (though that has some issues still). So I edited the regular UK combo schedule and bumped the pool to 18000 from 12000 and added all the flat and jumps features that were available in the in-game editor but not in the schedule. Realism people may hate it as I have some weekend races going off on weekdays. But I don't have to inflict that on anyone but me. I'm only a couple of months in but the fields seem quite full. Now to see what "filler" handicaps the AI generates ...

I recently adopted a similar strategy.

I truly am a newbie - purchased the game less than a month ago and haven't yet burned through 100 hours - but I suspect my style of play will be very similar so I'm enjoying this discussion. Shame there isn't more such chatter. I split time with baseball and tactical war sims, and both associated forums have far more discussion.