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 A Comparison Of How My Horses Have Improved in SO6 
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Post A Comparison Of How My Horses Have Improved in SO6
The first season of SO6 I had 6 flat winners and 17 NH winners, the second season of SO6 I had 4 flat winners and 17 NH winners.

In the first 2 seasons of SO6 I only had 2 saved games, one for flat and one for NH. I didn't really understand about green bars and ttf files, I only bred the horses that had done well in the main game and I rarely trialled horses in the CK until it was time to upload horses to the league.

In the third season of SO6 I had 9 flat winners and 35 NH winners. I must admit that in this season I felt that the NH was easier to compete in and concentrated most of my breeding in the NH. I new a little more about green bars but still not to the level I understand them now. I had started to use the CK more to trial horses at the end of each season and only breed with those horses. I also started to concentrate on one distance at a time and have about 8 different saved games. I also started to use ttf files more.

The fourth season was cut short due to illness and I only played about 6 weeks of the season, but in that time I had 11 flat winners and 24 NH winners.

This current season I have 35 flat winners and 48 NH winners. Now I have a much fuller understanding of what green bars mean in the flat game, I only use short schedules, concentrate on one distance at a time, trial horses at the end of each season and only breed the best CK horses with the best CK horses and ignore how horses perform in the main game. I still use ttf files but not as much as some of the detractors seem to think. The only saved game where I have horses with II's and III's after their names are in my long distance NH game where I am using the different versions of the same horse to trial 6yo, 7yo and 8yo horses against each other. Now that I have good green bars, I produce lots of good horses without resorting to ttf files.


My advice is to firstly concentrate on getting those good green bars, don't worry about winning races while you get the green bars, and then have smaller breeding barns with only the best CK horses in the barn. Quite often I have only about 12-15 mares and 3 stallions per distance, but they are the best CK horses I have bred. I described a quick way to get good bars in the post at the top of the forum on Breeding for the League.


Jim


Sun Feb 25, 2018 8:27 am
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Post Re: A Comparison Of How My Horses Have Improved in SO6
Is always interesting to read how others approach league breeding, there are aspects of this I follow and aspects I do not. But I would echo the breeding of ck success as one of the main ingredients to breeding league sucess. I play two main games, one flat and one NH that have long standing breeding programmes based purely on ck, and of late I usually have another one or two development games. Right now it is just the one, these I use to tap into different countries for those green bar improvements or as is the case now to start the mix of those bars once found back into my ck lines, with the ultimate aim of moving the bar and ck end result back into the main games as I am trying to scale back on the grind. Only schedule change I make is to increase the size of the pool of game horses to the max as game horses hold the key to everything, otherwise they are standard in whatever country I play. I still mass trial and breed just as I find it easier.


Sun Feb 25, 2018 10:07 am
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Post Re: A Comparison Of How My Horses Have Improved in SO6
I think I could now have equal success with just two main saved games and one or two saves for experimentation but since I have invested so much time into the single distance games, it would be a pain to change back now. I just find it less complicated to concentrate on one distance at a time and with the shorter schedules, I am trying, like you, to cut down on the grind.

At the moment, my sprinters and milers are my best horses, so with the smaller saved games, I can concentrate on only breeding the longer distance horses and ignore the shorter distances. I couldn't do this so easily in one large saved game.

As I said, I think my success is down to understanding more of the importance of green bars and the trialling at the end of each season so that I breed with only the best CK horses.


Sun Feb 25, 2018 2:54 pm
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Post Re: A Comparison Of How My Horses Have Improved in SO6
Wannabe wrote:
I think I could now have equal success with just two main saved games and one or two saves for experimentation but since I have invested so much time into the single distance games, it would be a pain to change back now. I just find it less complicated to concentrate on one distance at a time and with the shorter schedules, I am trying, like you, to cut down on the grind.

At the moment, my sprinters and milers are my best horses, so with the smaller saved games, I can concentrate on only breeding the longer distance horses and ignore the shorter distances. I couldn't do this so easily in one large saved game.

As I said, I think my success is down to understanding more of the importance of green bars and the trialling at the end of each season so that I breed with only the best CK horses.


It goes to show we all tailor our breeding differently , im now doing a full schedule and I've changed how I breed because im not shortening my game but making it bigger and im already on the longest game I've played.


Sun Feb 25, 2018 3:36 pm
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Post Re: A Comparison Of How My Horses Have Improved in SO6
I love absorbing info like this, it helps me alot.
I am still at the bar improving stage, none of my horses in this season could run over 7f so i am trying to develop longer distance horses.
While i am getting some reasonable results i think i can improve my efficiency alot.

On thing that really interests me is what methods you use to trial in CK?
Currently i run a field of 10, normally run that field 5-6 times and pick the best 3 to go onto the next set.

I'm also starting to think about my flat stable makeup, how many of what distance runners ect?
I hope to put together a NH stable for next season but i'm working on the flat stable first.

Cheers


Mon Feb 26, 2018 1:55 am
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Post Re: A Comparison Of How My Horses Have Improved in SO6
When I trial horses in the CK, I only have about 10 - 14 horses in each race. In each race I usually have a pacemaker and the two best horses from my previous trial plus about 8-10 new horses. Trialling in the CK is not an exact science, sometimes race results can be very inconsistant. I usually give each horse about 8 races to demonstrate their abilities. Look at the horses listed in the race below.

Image

The first horse is the pacemaker and can be ignored. The two horses whose name ends in Shield were the two previous best horses and those horses whose name ends in Castle are the new horses. I want to find the best stallion for my next generation of breeding from the Castle horses who in the last 8 races have performed slightly better than the Shield horses. When you look at their race results and handicaps there is very liittle to choses between some of them. Should I choose Aberdeen who has won 2 out of 8 races or should I choose Dunfermline who has only won 1 out of 8 races but has slightly better consistancy? In all probability, I will breed with both of them, but if I had to choose just one horse to upload to the league, I would choose Dunfermline because of the slightly better consistancy or even choose one of the two castle mares at the bottom of the racecard.


When it comes to the makeup of your league stable, look at the breakdown of races that Sirius produced, it will give you an idea of whether you need one horse per distance or a colt and a filly at that distance and the age of the horse.

viewtopic.php?f=16&t=16759

From my own perspective, there are a lot of 3up races and I now have 3yo horses with a 100% potential bar, so I reckon I don't need many 4yo horses as they get a 6lb penalty when running against 3yo horses. There are a few 4up races so I will still need a few 4yo horses. The 2yo races start at 5f and go up to 10f. There is also the sex of the horse to consider. Look how many fillies or colts only races there are in the schedule.

If you want to cover as many different types of races as possible then here is a possible breakdown.

2yo Horses
one 5f horse - preferably a filly but a colt will do
two 6f horses - one colt and one filly
two 8f horses - one colt and one filly
one 10f horse

Total - 6 horses

3yo Horses
two 5f horses - one colt and one filly
two 6f horses - one colt and one filly
two 8f horses - one colt and one filly
two 10f horses - one colt and one filly
two 12f horses - one colt and one filly
one 14f horse
two 16f+ horses

Total - 13 horses

4yo Horses
one 5f\6f horse
one 8f horse
one 10f horse
one 12f horse
one 16+ horse

Total - 5 horses

Grand Total of 24 horses.


There are going to be more races with two entries next season and you said that your longer distance horses are not so good, so maybe you want to concentrate on a limited number of race distances. In that case you could upload more shorter distance horses and have less longer distance horses.


On the National Hunt side I usually have something like this

Juvenile (4yo) - one colt and one filly

National Hunt Flat - one horse

2 miles - 8 horses in total, 4 Novices, 2 of which are hurdlers and 2 chasers, usually one filly and one colt and 4 Open horses 2 of which are hurdlers and 2 chasers, usually one filly and one colt

2m 4f - 8 horses in total, 4 Novices, 2 of which are hurdlers and 2 chasers, usually one filly and one colt and 4 Open horses 2 of which are hurdlers and 2 chasers, usually one filly and one colt

3 miles - 6 horses in total, 2 Novices, 1 of which is a hurdler and 1 chaser and 4 Open horses 1 of which is a hurdler and 3 chasers.

3m 4f - 2 horses (chasers)

4 miles up - 2 horses (chasers)

Total 29 horses


Jim


Mon Feb 26, 2018 6:30 am
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Post Re: A Comparison Of How My Horses Have Improved in SO6
Thank you very much Jim.

Exactly what i was looking for.
Guess i should have re-read your pinned post. :)
The stable makeup will be very helpful.

Much appreciated!


Mon Feb 26, 2018 6:45 am
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Post Re: A Comparison Of How My Horses Have Improved in SO6
How do you get that race card in the CK, Jim?


Mon Feb 26, 2018 8:04 pm
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Post Re: A Comparison Of How My Horses Have Improved in SO6
Taunton wrote:
How do you get that race card in the CK, Jim?


The racekit I use to run the league races makes changes to the CK and if I don't reset the racekit options before I use the CK the racekit options cross over to the CK.

The main thing it does is show the horses form and changes to the horses handicap. It doesn't have any effect on how a horse runs in the race.

If Gray or anyone involved with running the league has no objections, I will post a link to download the racekit and how to get this kind of racecard in the CK

Jim


Mon Feb 26, 2018 9:56 pm
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Post Re: A Comparison Of How My Horses Have Improved in SO6
Wannabe wrote:
Taunton wrote:
How do you get that race card in the CK, Jim?


The racekit I use to run the league races makes changes to the CK and if I don't reset the racekit options before I use the CK the racekit options cross over to the CK.

The main thing it does is show the horses form and changes to the horses handicap. It doesn't have any effect on how a horse runs in the race.

If Gray or anyone involved with running the league has no objections, I will post a link to download the racekit and how to get this kind of racecard in the CK

Jim


Thanks. It just looked a bit easier to keep track of the trial runs that way.


Mon Feb 26, 2018 10:18 pm
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Post Re: A Comparison Of How My Horses Have Improved in SO6
Since no-one has raised any objections, here is a link to the racekit and how to install it.

https://app.box.com/s/0q2akxqkl9hj85soo5f3ty0yemgfogkx

Copy the racekit file to the main SO6 folder in c:\program files(86)\ starters orders 6

Start the racekit and then click the small button on the left middle of screen

On the next screen select the top option, but not the second option


Image


Now quit from the racekit, (click on the button at top right of screen and the the big button in middle of screen)

Now if you run races in the CK, the racecard should be updated with race results.

Jim


Wed Feb 28, 2018 6:48 am
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Post Re: A Comparison Of How My Horses Have Improved in SO6
I messed about with using the actual race kit to trial, and whilst being able to track form and handicap does make it easier to compare results I am convinced it also effects the outcome, via confidence, just as I remain convinced this plays a part in the league itself. I now tend to do the main trails in the game ck and only do my final league team selection trail in the kit.


Wed Feb 28, 2018 8:53 am
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