He has just the tiniest sliver, barely visible, for quirks. he was the most promising colt I have ever had and was winning and placing as a 3 year old. Then for the last 6 races he has finished dead last, dropping out literally about 2/3 through the race, and I keep getting "Would not settle".
I have changed distances, he loves conditions of track. There is no weather... I have tried ever pacifier twice, none of them help.

I search the internet for the solution and no one ever answers or knows the answer.
Very frustrating. I guess I have no choice but to auction him at this point.





Any ideas?

Horse probably needs a fast pace to settle. The decline is because he probably has a hidden trait that has peak performance at a certain age. ( you can see some of the extra traits horses have by looking at the legend editor). The stamina bar suggest a 9f horse as well. It can possibly get 8f but only if callenge early is used

Probably best to sell and move on. You sometimes get group winners like this, which can be retired but he will not be better than ai horses in the breeding barn and can go. If female you could possinbly have bred her to something to improve your lines.

Also the horse has low confidence, so once form goes it is hard to get it back

I'm going to start racing them fillies until their at least 4 yrs old for those stat boosts as it makes more sense than doing what I've been doing.

What difficulty level do you guys play on? I'm playing on easier and I'm getting 30+ good horses per year and its hard to keep track of them and sift through which horses to keep and which to sell. One of the horses I've sold has already won a G2 race and only a couple of the horses I've kept have managed to win a G3 race. How do you guys decide which horses to keep and which horses to sell? Should I start again on medium difficulty?

Thank you all for your help.

This is a good answer. I am going to try that with the next horse I have this problem with - faster pace like "Handy".
I think you are right about hidden rating for decline because he lost 10 speed points @ age 4. I just auctioned him off.
Thank you

Yeah, it is hard to decide which 2 year olds to keep and which to move.
Some are easy right away, but it is that group of tweeners that you can sometime get bogged down with.
So right off the bat lower than 70 POT or SPD gets sold right away. Now those rating do go up, but I don't think they go up that much to make them a good horse unless they have a lot of unrealized POT and a high rate of maturity.
I really want by age 3 80 POT and SPD, so if they don't look like they will make it I waive goodbye. (again really high unrealized POT with high rate of maturity can get and exception to this. They could possibly reach 80 as a 2yo while sitting under 70 as a 1 yo.)
This past season I kept the most I have ever kept (10), simply because I noticed POT and SPD can improve 10 points no problem just by racing in year 2.
As I mentioned earlier females have an easier time making the cut because if they are G1 heredity (which all of mine are) and 80 POT SPD they will at minimum pop out a 2 million dollar foal to sell at age 2.
I mate my low tier G1 stud Brave Ridge from earlier with about 5 of the lesser mares and I get at least one worth keeping and the others go for 2 mill or so.
I had a confidence problem in my barn and moved some mares out and stopped using the studs I got the problem with, so any 2 yos with that problem also get moved.
It seems to be improving.

So yeah, I think it is a good idea to race the ones you keep.
I don't start racing them until Feb, and then space them out to get 5-6 races in. You don't want to get that message that they are about to be overraced, because that shuts them down for the season, and letting them go until mid feb seems to help with that.
I race them as 2 and 3 year olds. The at 4 the mares can go to the breeding barn if they can't win. I will race the good mares at least until end of season and breed them in Oct. I will let a great racing mare race @ 5 too. Sending them to the barn to breed at end of season 4 and then bringing them back never seems to work out, so I don't do that.

From what I understand difficulty level only effects quality of the horses you start with and gambling, so it doesn't matter for racing or breeding purposes.
Hope that helps some.