I've had my Sony Vaio 8 years and never had any problems, got to admit u have to really do u homework on them before buying one. I spent nearly 6 months before i picked it out.

I thought I had but got suckered into what I thought was a bargain. To be fair it had been ok until the trackpad went. My previous ASUS is 12 years and I have fired it back up and am using it for this now. Should have just stuck with what had been good in the past and bought another ASUS. Went the long way around but done that now and the new 18" beast arrives tomorrow. Hopefully it will make my horses run faster.

How high?

Well I found one with 85 in my game, the highest one I've found in 7. So mine have up to 85. U sometimes find these high bar horses but u can never get them into u lines, luckily I got it into them. The highest one I've ever seen was at the start in 6 and they had 90 but was useless and never totally got into them.

I've been going through my jump files and I had a horse that had better bars ( hold up)than my front runners and I'm going to see if he could give my jumpers a lift for next season. I know his league ability was terrible compared to his bars, I'll give it a go and if not I'll soon drop it.

Hmm ok new game required for next season then. I got 82 in my uk flat game but never made it stick and lost it, I am mostly working with 75% now few touching 80. But I won’t catch front running 85 . US tops out at 69%

Bars mean a lot less in the NH, for years I have been rolling out horses with 70% speed and 55% cruise, my best is now 80% and 60% respectively but it does not seem to matter and I have had games with far better who don’t get close.

My hypothesis on bars is get to a certain level and your looking at a flat horse not a NH horse, which I reason can appear in any game type, so monster bars in a NH game is likely a flat horse who will never help with anything other than frustratingly good looking horses you can’t use might get away with them on short distance hurdles.

I agree, the NH bars mean less. Lots more variables. A lot more unknowns.

The odd thing with 7 is that u can only get 90% speed with jump horses and yet u could get 100% on So6. I've never wanted to play combine but it must be a case that they get more speed and the jumps game gets better jumpers, our horses compete against combine players. And never worked why the game gives u 100% cruise and yet u can't get it. Always found it odd.

That’s true. My SO6 game was combined I think, and I split it in two after a time with one focussed on NH types and one on flat but they all basically shared the same origin and bars, it was just trial form that split them. SO7 changed things with NH horses who properly aged. Rather than everything being a 4yo. I think the combine guys are all racing flat hybrids against my more pure NH types, but then since I figure horse creation is random and not that scientific you can get either type in any game. I probably just weeded them out when the game started in league mode with the bars hidden, it was only trial form that lead me to keep horses and why my bars today look so average.

I see this with my flat game juvenile hurdlers, they are all significantly worse to look at than my flat lines, and every time I try and mix them for better bars I get flat horses or duds.

Not the best start to the week, my two entries into the 7f AW handicap were 1 & 2 in the car park so had no chance, and the other two finished out of shot. Some steady runs from my bumper pair, who I'm hoping could challenge for a decent race somewhere and Naljma ran really well in the handicap hurdle. The rest tailed off waiting for hunter ratings or low hcap hurdles.

Not a bad week or so for me so far. Horses are looking much more competitive than I thought they would, but it has given me a little drive to play again for another season now.

pleased an surprised to win the 1000 Guineas, although Delicate Fern has looked very impressive now since she got off that Heavy ground. My 3yo's probably are the biggest improvement I made over a mile an middle distances last time I played it.

Breathtaking Legend last week is definitely one I was hoping would have a big season. Looks like my 1m4 horses are actually 1m2 horses though as her an Impressive Nation I thought would be my best horses, both win my 1m4 an 1m2 trials at home an were entered as 1m4, but seems like Impressive Nation certainly needs to be dropped back an breathtaking Legend won a group1 over 10f

Breathtaking Legend is probably the exact opposite horse to what Josh an John are discussing they have there. She has 100 potential an 100 extra speed, but only 55 cruise. I do have 75% cruise horses though to breed her with. Impressive nation himself is 99 Pot 99 extra speed an only 58 cruise. Hoping next season could see some pretty good middle distance horses come through, I just hadn't bred on from these since about week 2 of last seasons league, so threw in what was winning my breeding trials rather than League trials horses. The balance is massively out in my team because I just picked the best looking horses at random last minute.

My speed and potential are very ordinary, it goes to show different ways to get good horses. I think I got 95% out of the ability on the flat ( well proud of that) but I think I only got 75% out of my jumpers. Way to many mistakes along the way.

I know a lot is made of Potential being the main stat. I would argue though that the make up of the league is much better suited to handy horses with big Cruise stat. I always find the lower my cruise stat on horses with high Pot an extra speed, the further back they sit in races, whereas the higher the cruise burst, even if the potential an extra speed isn't quite there, the racing style is just much more suited.

There is definitely a correlation between stats and run styles and you need more of certain things to be good at certain styles, as you say in simple terms it’s cruise for front running and speed to come late. But don’t over look potential or underestimate its effect. I think it’s the lesser of the three on the flat as long as your 95% or above, but in the NH it’s a big differential, especially for consistency which is how I measure my NH horses.