Thanks for the quick reply and the tips on trialling. Guess flat and NH are different that way. Too used to seeing the added weight for the older horses from flats!

I would advise people who are just joining the UKRA, to get a small team of horses and join the NH league. You will not be disappointed.

It's possible but not a priority. Will look at doing it during the season as I feel it will enhance the league

I only ask because it been suggested best time to breed flat horses is early in season- apparently makes a huge diference so wondered if the same applied here?

Exporting Flat horses was always Aug/Sep 3yo+ and exporting 2yo was a little later Oct/Nov.

As for exporting NH horses any time after August, i've even exported them in Jan to great effect.

I dont think there is a solid time to export horses in the game.

I have only played a few season of NH, have always concentrated on flat before, so apologise if questions seem stupid.

In the flat most of the breeding tips I have read talk about maximising absolute potential and achieved potential.

Is this still important for NH horses?

The reason I ask is that I have horses who have max potential getting beat in the ck by horses with only 80% potential. These horses are quite often bred of the same sires.

Leon says that the optimal age for longer distances is 7yo+ but the actual potental bar drops dramatically at these ages, so does that mean the potential bar has no significance?


Another question: Is there a prime age for breeding horses?

At the moment I am breeding from age 8 - 11.


Another question: At what ages do you trial horses in the ck?


Yet another question: What is a Bumper race?

optimal age is 5/6 for distances under 3m2 and 7/8/9 for distances over 3m5 but can depend on the horse

bumper is a national hunt flat race

It depends upon your lines too. Mine all mature between 5-7/8 so they are prefect for NH. Whereas if you've been breeding early, flat types then they will deteriorate at 7. Some of mine actually get better again at 7.

The trialing is tough because there are more factors in a jump race, like mistakes and the speed at which a horse can jump which all affect the result.

or just trial your flat cast offs it has worked for me so far to the annoyance of some
joking apart i can't believe how my NHC team has performed
i only especially bred 2 or 3 of the 28 the rest are very well bred flat horses
timewise i would say percentage i have spent is
97% on my flat team & 3% on NHC
i never dreamt i would even be close to the top 10 trainers

But that's the thing with this game. There are fewer factors involved than in real life, so 9 times out of 10 a good flat horse will be a good NH horse if it jumps. So, seeing as yours obviously jump well they were quite obviously going to do well. I'm really surprised at how well mine have done, they are the product of 4-6 hours of intensive breeding a day or two before the league started. That goes for flat and NH horses so they really have done well.

I've had 2/3 G1 winners in NH from Flat trial cast off's and most of my NH string have always been flat cast off's hurry up the second season... Finally got my laptop and 300 Exports back running!

My NH string has been all flat castoffs- and has been abysmal.

I'm doing it different to most and that is i'm using my best jump horses to breed with. It's separate from my flat breeding game, most of my best jump horse's are from one flat horse who was/is my best/fastest sprinter.

Yes but Paul probably has 20-50x the number of flat castoffs you have .

Add to that, no matter how long anybody has played the game to get their league horses it is almost a certainty that Paul has still played at least twice as long for his. So the average ability of his flat cast offs will be a lot higher too. I would like for my horses to win more races in the league, but I'm pleased with how they have fared. Especially as they have surprised one or two people with the way they have run.

Even though I play in a flat game, most of mine are bred for jumping too. So my flat horses are really NH cast offs which either didn't jump or weren't as good as the NH horses.

Out of interest Paul, do you pick the NH horses to trial on jumping ability on the ability page or do you just trial them all irrespective of jumping ability and pick whoever is best?