In three and a half years of Starters Orders, I have finally won the one race that has eluded me. The Grand National. It was done with an SO7 gamebred.

Picked up the horse as an unraced 3yo in a flat only game. Could see from his profile that he'd never make up into a decent flat horse. The PRB (Potential Rating Bar) was sitting at about 15% dark green, plus another 20% of pale green to fill. Hardly the stuff of a potential champion.

Head Lad reported he had Good Jumping Potential, and Average Agility. The colt also preferred firmer ground, not ideal to go National Hunt. He did however have maximum ground/surface adaptability, minimum deterioration (the red bar), reasonably attractive secondary stats for a National Hunt stayer, and a better than average jumping speed potential.

Untrainable in manual training due to zero training adaptation. Only option really, an auto-training combined flat/jumps game. Sent him to the first year of a new flat/jumps game via the transfer pool. Had to rename him to do this. Called him Colonel Blimp after a 1934 British cartoon character.

As with most gamebred horses in SO7, took him a while to get going and to find his ideal race tactics. He turned into a "slight hold up" horse. In all his meaningful races sat out the back on the first circuit, and gradually crept closer to a challenging position on the second circuit, taking up the running about three fences out with a fast jump pulling 6 lengths clear and with his owner praying that he hold his advantage in the fianl stages of the race.

He won two grade 3 Grand National trials at Haydock on Soft ground. A pleasant surprise. The first one from way out of the handicap. Simply didn't perform in his two Cheltenham Festival Cross Country races. Looked like a duck on land twisting and turnng round the course. Not his thing.

The big day for his first visit to Aintree arrived on a decent handicap mark of 138. Alloted 10st 7lbs. The ground came up firm (rare), and probably the main reason he won over 4m 3f-ish by 3 lengths, taking up the running three out and putting distance between himself and the chasing pack. Not for catching.

Moral of the story for those new to Starters orders- It goes to show you don't need horses to look like the Pro's flying machines you see in here to win a
quality race.

I hope his pictures come out ok below.

https://ortacstation.shutterfly.com/pictures/11

https://ortacstation.shutterfly.com/pictures/11#10

Very nice. Don't blame you for being so happy about it!

Nice!

I'm also noticing that the potential bar doesn't seem as overwhelming a stat in SO7 as it was in SO6. Could be due to lots of tweaks game side, and the observation may not hold in longer games, or ofc if SO7 ever gets used as the engine for league.