I have completed my schedule. I have one big issue. I have the 2000 Guineas, 1000 Guineas, Kentucky Derby, Kentucky oaks, Preakness, Black-Eyed Susan, Epsom Derby, Oaks, Belmont Stakes and Acorn Stakes on their actual dates.... and I'm just not getting more than about 7-12 horses in each race.

Which I can understand since alot of the same horses would be running in these races and they can't race in them all.

So... I'm trying to figure out the best solution. Will I need to move one of the Triple Crown groups to July/August or maybe just don't have both (which I don't want) or is there another solution?

may - june - july tripple crown would help you

So keep all the races but space them out a bit?

I have finally got around to making a start with building my own worldwide schedule, and it is definitely possible to keep every race on its correct date if you make full use of prepping and are willing to put a lot of work into it. Prepping can be a nightmare, as it requires an extremely fine balance to create a maximum level of realism, and a huge amount of trial, error and testing, especially when you're working on something as big as a worldwide flat schedule with many races from different countries.

Well, I've already put a lot of work into it so that's not an issue. Playing around with my schedule, I have started to wonder about preps and their effect in getting horses where I want them to be (ie the best 3 yo in the Triple Crown Races). Right now, I have 4 races in early April as prep races for the Kentucky Derby (all G1's -- Wood, Santa Anita, Florida and another one). Then I have 4 races in late March and early April as prep races for the 2000 Guineas and 1000 Guineas (I think they are all G3's -- Derrinstown Trial races and 2 other G3's).

I also created a "Dirt" and "Turf" Triple Crown style of races (for 3 yo) for sprinters. The dirt ones run from Jan to Mar, and the Turf ones from May to June.

I have noticed some of the horses will run in both of these events.

I'm getting off track here. What is the best way to use prep races? Using them alot? Only a little? Right now I'm using them pretty much only for the Triple Crown races and the Breeders Cup races.

It really depends on the races you're prepping for - I think the maximum number of preps you can have for a single race is 10. Also, season-long preps work much better in SO5 than they did in previous versions, which helps when it comes to the big races at the end of the season. For the default schedule, I used preps very sparingly, as I didn't want to over-complicate things, but with my own schedule that I'm creating I plan to make far more use of them, as they're a very useful tool when it comes to assisting the AI in the game to make things more realistic, especially when you're creating a worldwide schedule.

One tip I would give is that if you're heavily prepping a big race, and there is another big race less than two weeks before the target race that might also be attracting similar horses, you might find that the unprepped race suffers from a depleted field, as horses might be more likely to bypass the race in favour of the heavily-prepped race less than two weeks later. It's just a case of trial and error sometimes to get the balance right, but it can definitely pay off when you get it just right

would this not make it even more realistic? for example you would have a weaker field for the german derby than in say the irish derby or grand prix de paris which are on at roughly the same time of the year, this happens in real life so i think it would add an extra layer of realism to the game, if thats even possible

It depends on each individual case. I was thinking more along the lines of the two races being of similar prestige, but where you would want to prep the second race due to the first race normally attracting a stronger field due to it appearing first in the schedule. However, over-prepping the second race could end up having the opposite effect, and result in the first race ending up weaker. Sometimes it's just a balancing act to achieve the highest level of realism!

Just wondering, what is the purpose of prep races in the game and what do they actually do?

Read the above Ubar!

I will answer this on a separate thread, as it is slightly off the original topic of this thread.