Hi i used to when play Stable Masters when I was a kid and always had an interest in horses then horse racing. I was put onto this via someone on ORL.

I love the game and haven't been this addicted to a PC game since FM2007. There are a few annoying flaws which we are all aware of BUT overall this is a very well made game which keeps me up past my bedtime and dreaming of breeding from my new super filly at work!!

I have gleamed so much useful info from these boards and would like to thank everyone for their posts. The walkthroughs are excellent and some of the detail posted on training and breeding has been a huge help. Im now well into the game, season 40, have 10 mares in the barn that produce G1 winning 2,3 and 4yo's.

A couple of questions on breeding if I may?

I have noticed, possibly imagined, that some mares produce better offspring by breeding with stallions that have a certain preferred distance. For eg I have a 20 G1 winning mare that when bred with my champion colt produced very average horses, 3 years in a row. The stallion's other offspring was much better so tried the mare with my other stallions which produced lovely horses. Both horses wanted 1m2 and both were top horses, in my game, and winning races in good times+setting new records. I know in real life its like this but I still feel im not breeding as well as everyone else. I now have started to repeat successful breeding and hope to start a 4x4 breeding program.

But can anyone give me any tips please??

Sorry for the long and quite frankly blurted out post!

you should try breeding wth the game stallions mate you get some real stars that way

i only breed my mares with game stallions

and my stallions only cover game mares and it works a treat

go for quality not quantity
hope it helps a bit


the game is great

Do you never breed your own horses togther PJ? I find that the further into the game you get the better it is to breed your own together.

I find it a bit of a struggle breeding my own horses with each other, they are very good in game but useless when it comes to CK and league matters, I find the only way I get really class horse is to breed with the game horses, I.e had a mare covered by 3 of my top stallions and produced 2 maybe 3 group 1 wins between the 3, covered her with a game stallion (15 G1's, even beat all of mine in game) and it has basically started my sprint lineage, I now churn out class sprinters which I have never been able to do on a constant basis ever within the game. but again once I have reached the 2nd/3rd generation of this line it becomes worthless!! Make hay of the real great game stallions & mares when you can, i.e. if a game stallion comes avaliable in that year in the barn with over 10G1's then basically send as many mares as you can to it!

Ok thanks everyone. I have been breeding with game horses, a few who hold the record times at their respective distance, and they did produce some top class offspring. I just wondered how to take things to the next level?? Im now not breeding anything that is close to breaking track records or being good enough for the online league

Im playing the game on normal, if I re-started on hard would this make the game horses even better which in turn would produce better horses when breeding with them?

I'm on season 50 now and my horses are starting to level out and I'm producing loads of great horses but none that are Unbelieveable, if you want horses for the league, read the post by scatters in the online league section where it's best to start several games and breed with the track record breakers etc, I think the normal/hard difference doesn't really have any effect on horse AI, more your starting money etc. I've produced G1 winners in the league in Easy mode.

I find my top league horses come from breeding a 2nd/3rd generation top horse of mine with a 1st generation game horse!

tell a lie mate if i had 2 Exceptional horses over same distance i would breed them
but usually stick to game horses to breed with

hey pjrhodes do you just find game horses at the every day auctions? do you only buy game horses with group wins?

Excellent after reading the scatters/thunder posts I've changed my breeding slightly and now breed fewer 2yo's but so far they have been better.

Woodie I got lucky and found a Derby winner in one of the daily auctions but think they are rare finds. I wouldn't buy anything from the auctions that wasn't winning group races in decent times. Just breed from the best horses in the breeding section each year, check their group wins and the times.

never buy game horses when breeding dont need them
but do breed with game horses in the breeding barn
at the start of a new game i buy like crazy and hope to hit lucky
you do get the rare g1,2,3 winner in aution but it is a real rarerty

ya tempted to enter the lge again very informative piece by scatters

anyone no exact date when lge starts

How long is a piece of string??

I hope it is soon. I'm chomping at the bit.

Don't know much about the ins and outs, but there sure is a lot of arguing going on.

Anyway never mind back to SO4.

Ah ok you meaning the auction at the beginging on a new season? MIght start to buy more I only ever buy a sprinter or a 2miler from there if there over 400k.

When starting out I think most people use the pre-season auction and buy the horses which the computer trainers bid £400k+ for. After a few seasons I stopped doing this as I had a few quality mares, won G1's in good times(check the race history in the diary for this) and then bred them with the best game stallion each season. I know have 10 top quality mares over all distances in my breeding barn and every year they are all bred with the same stallion. Does that make sense? Also save your game each year on the very last day of season as often the monster game horse dies or is sold abroad and you can't breed from him. Keep re-loading game untill he is retired to stud.