I am glad that you brought this subject up as it has been one that the SOPL has had to deal with at least for the last 4 of their seasons.
In the SOPL with Starters 2 horses, the Trainers just compete with the best horses they have. As their lines progress in generations, their stables get tougher in the competitions. First Gens compete with game horses, 2nd Gen, 3rd Gen and so on. Its just how its done. It is the same in real world thoroughbred competitions amongst veterans and new trainers, large stables and small stables.
There are some solutions to making competition fair for both veteran and young stables. There are various races each week that do cater to the smaller or younger stables. They are the Banded races & various other races that only allow horses who have specific ratings, in the races. These races at allow these stables to compete amongst other stables at their level.
There are various types of dog races that are below Feature Races that we could eventually include in order to make sure that younger kennels had plenty of races that they could compete in as well.
With our Trials the competition could be fairly close since we are all in the beginning stages of building our kennels. 3rd gen may not be a huge difference in some cases then 1st gen, but it could be quite a big difference from a 20th gen kennels. Still we certainly can add various types of graded races that would ensure fair competition for all kennels.
JimCougar
http://www.ORLWorld.com