I picked up SO4 a couple of weeks ago and my first few games were terrible. I play UK Flat schedule on Normal and would slowly drain my money each time, not getting anywhere. After a few attempts I realised the starting horses are generally poor so next new start I sold them all straight away. Think I got over £100k for the 2yo, £50k for the 3yo and £30k for the 4yo - nothing huge but it gave me a decent amount of starting cash. I picked up a couple of horses in auctions that had struggled in handicaps but won easily in claimings, and spent a couple of years betting on those in claimings and buying back until my money was high enough to get a breeding barn. Unfortunately all the good looking mares went for over £200k and I couldn't afford that while still having enough money left after to breed with. Eventually I saw a 10yo at 57 rating but bred from a Group 1 Winner. Figured I'd see what I could get her for and with the auction staying below £10k I went for it, bought her and retired her to stud straight away.

With the mare having a breeding guide of 1m1f I went for the closest option I could afford and bred with a 6yo Stallion having 5 Group 1 wins over 6f, costing £86k. While the foal was a yearling I kept running the claiming horses, then at 2yo with the claiming horses getting old I sold them off and focused on my first self-bred foal, a filly I named Ancaro. (Mare Ancarjen, Sire Alvaro). While she wasn't a prolific horse she gave me my first group win, winning a 7f Group 3 race in her 2yo year. As a 3yo she struggled a bit in the groups but made the step up to 1m races, winning a couple of listeds and some 0-120 handicaps. As a 4yo she again struggled to pick up group wins but did manage one win that year, the Windsor Forest Group 2 over 1m. By the end of her 4yo year she had career winnings of £198k with a 0/1/1 record and I decided to retire her to stud, to breed as a 5yo and attempt to improve the bloodline.

From Ancaro I bred with another 6f Group 1 winning Stallion, this time with a rating of 119 and group record of 4/2/1. The colt resulting from this became a decent 6f horse, consistently placing in Group 2 and 3 races with the odd win here and there. A couple of 2nd places in the Breeders Cup and Dubai races saw his earnings pass a million and I was going to retire him at the end of his 5yo year but decided to run one race as a 6yo the next year, at Dubai, which he won and I retired him straight after with final earnings of £1.96m. Ancaro's foals over the next few years also became Group 1 winners with one, a colt/stallion running 1m races, breaking into the Hall of Fame. He (Americaro) sits at 97th with career earnings of £2.87m.

I'm in 2028 now and finally feeling like I have a substantial career going. Instead of having one horse running, or 2-3, I now have over 15 active horses - all self-bred. Ancaro, the original foal, is 16 now and still breeding, though her foals since she turned 10 have all dropped in ability with the latest few all struggling to win group races. Her first 4 offspring all had successful careers including Group 1 wins and are now also breeding; two mares (7f and 1m) and two stallions (6f and 1m). While the mares only produce one per year for obvious reasons I've been using the money I made to breed the stallions quite a lot and now have quite a few yearlings/foals each year.

Now I have money in the bank (currently £1.3m, I was over £3m but spend a lot on breeding) and proven winners retired to stud I'm hoping to move up a level and breed horses that can become amogst the best in the game, rather than only winning occasionally at Group 1 level. Currently I have breeding options from 6f to 1m and while those are the distances I've been successful with so far it does mean my horses tend to be competing against each other. As such I'm attempting to expand and breed for 1m2f and 1m4f as well, to target races such as the Epsom Derby. Ideally then I can have maybe 2 horses at each distance per year, rather than the 5 colts I have running 6f at the moment! I've spent a shedload of money breeding different distances in the last year or two so hopefully something will work and new distance-lines can begin

I'm just glad my gamble at the start worked, my first time breeding and I wasn't sure anything good would come from a 10yo mare with 57 rating but I guess the Group 1 winning blood in her held true. My progress so far is probably very slow for a lot of people but after a few failed attempts with starting horses I finally got something good going so I thought I'd share and maybe help other new people out who may be struggling as I was

Finally, a few questions based on things I've noticed/wondered about:

1. Jockeys. I see different weights and fees but can't see any mention of what other differences there are. Is a £300 jockey going to make better decisions than a £100 jockey? Will one jockey excel at running closing horses (Hold Up/Restrain) while another might be better at running Handy? So far I've pretty much been guessing and when I think I've got a jockey right for one situation he'll fail and someone else will do better :p

2. Breeding. What's the important factor? Is the rating a horse had when it retired vital, or if it had 130 as a 6yo and kept racing until dropping to 110 as a 9yo will that not matter? Are winnings the key thing? The price of breeding certainly seems to increase based on the horse's winnings. Will a horse breed better foals as a 6yo than it will when it becomes 12?

That's about all for now. Apologies if the post is a bit long-winded but I felt like sharing Now back to developing my bloodlines.