Early on in my breeding when a horse turned 4 it was better, setting faster times, but now I have 3yo's beating 4 and 5yo's. Now in my trials the same horse at 3,4 and 5 is roughly the same level.

The first season isn't going to be perfect but there will still be plenty of 3yo only and 4yo+ races as irl and as last seasons schedule. But we could have some 3yo only maidens and 4yo+ maidens.

must be just me then cos my older horses about half a second ahead of 3yos

Same in my game

Yeah my horses get better as they get older, the ability bar increases each year as well, until they reach 6 and start to decrease .

Same here, my horses seem at there best at 4yo or 5yo. I have 3yo's who win G1's but then do nothing at 4 or 5. Although I have a 6yo who is unbeaten over 1m 6f who I may enter in the the league.

Are you trialling your horses in the ck?

Is the ck trialling the race builder on the main menu? In which case if it is then yes. I'm new to all this league stuff so I dont expect to do that well in my first season but im looking forward to it.

Unfortunatly I only get to play SO5 a few hours per week so I just dont have the time to do 40/50 seasons to find a wonderhorse through breeding and exporting. My 1m 6 horse called Finesse has won 19/23 and also beat my top stayer (2x Ascot gold cup winner) over 2m 1 in the race builder so I have options with him at least.