Hi everyone,

Martin came up with a great idea when we were chatting last week - a trainer's championship for races on all-weather dirt tracks in the UK.

I will happily put together a spreadsheet and collate all the results throughout the season and post them on this thread....just need some imput from all of you first....how would you like to see the Championship decided?;

a) most prizemoney won
b) most wins
c) a points scoring system for the top 5 with 10pts for 1st, 6 pts for 2nd, 4 pts for 3rd, 2 pts for 4th and 1 pt for 5th

Let me know your thoughts, most popular will be the way we go!

Cheers,
Paul

I wouldn't do prizemoney , I think points would be best. It gives all trainers a chance.

I'm on holidays the next two weeks but when I get back I'll do the ante post odds for races like the Arc and that.

Thanks John, points is my preference too (in case of a tie in the votes!). Enjoy your holidays.

I think it gives all trainers an equal chance. Something for everyone. Thanks.

Only the top 3 or 4( whoever they are ) have a chance to win the league but with an all weather champs it gives everyone else a shot at winning it. Its a great idea. Will be interesting to see how many races there are. If we had done this earlier I might have tried to bred other flat horses.

Just looking at the aw schedule I think u would need more races on the surface and more low/middle hcaps to make it a proper champ. I don't think the dirt races should be included, they are for the top trainers. It would produce more competion lower down and it might help/keep newbies interested into staying. U wouldn't need to put in 100 seasons to compete.

Maybe we can try an get a lot more races into the schedule too for this in future. Probably SO8 now, but it's a great way for trainers to stay competitive thoughout the league season. Having them capped at 100 will keep the trainers out that shouldn't be in there too

Rather than trying to make the schedule as real life like as possible. We need to think more about dropping some group3s an group2s, an adding in either an all weather championship like this. Or even a load of turf races throughout the season for horses under 100, with exactly the same points system. Add in good prize money equivalent to the group races an name all the races well. There's going to be no way of getting a perfect schedule for both top trainers an lower trainers, it's impossible. Doing this will keep things very interesting both both sets. Maybe even go to 95 or 90 as the limit so the group races dont become too empty. It may take some sorting an organising, schedule wise, but definitely something to look at for SO8

I honestly think the main problem we have sometimes with the schedule, is trying to make it too life like. Unfortunately the make up of the league, an everyones differing 'game times' makes it very unrealistic if you try to replicate real life. Taking some of those mid tier races an creating something, would help IMO for every trainer.

I'd definitely help out with the organising if needed too, even if my horses aren't in it

Thanks Vinny

I have been saying this for years. The balance of Group races to handicaps/conditions/maiden races is wrong. There should be at least one maiden race every day at least up until Royal Ascot. Group 3 races could be limited handicaps. We try to cram too many of the big races in. There shouldn't be a Group 1 over every distance every week. Sometimes those Group 1 horses should have to run with a penalty in a G2. 3yo milers for example have got a G1 every week from week 3 - 6 and its usually the same runners Guineas then Irish Guineas then Coronation or St James Palace dependant on sex. Add to that the Kranji mile the week after. Both Guineas could be run on the same week and then at least the Royal Ascot races would be a clash of the winners probably.

In an ideal world I would like each day to be 2 six race cards set up like proper meetings. With the exception of Royal Ascot and Cheltenham. This would also make those weeks a bit special if we had extra races. All this flitting about from track to track every day is not necessary.

I think u looking at it the wrong way, instead of working back to need to start at the beginning. Someone needs to write out what u need for an AW championship , workout what u need each week and then incorporate it into the fixture list. U can't run 2 races like the guineas the same week , first workout what u need then work forward. I'd have a look at it.

The first thing that needs a bit of a change is the AW finals. Most of them turned out to be 8 runner races, not really competitive racing. Probably needs another race each with 4 qualifying. I think the bands are wrong as well, they start high and then get lower. I think that's the wrong way around.

My point was to basically scrap the AW championships all together. Make a Handicap league, within the actual league. It doesn't need to be AW. But races each week over different distances, all with the points system as mentioned. All with max handicap of 100, even differing limits if needed. But it would add something within the league system that's big enough to satisfy everyone. It's a big overhaul, but I think it would make a huge difference to the gameplay within the league.

There's a lot of nothing races within this schedule that could be removed for these races, most the lower handicaps would just be incorporated into it too.

U can do both, u can have a aw championship within a championship. U don't need all aw races into the aw championship finals. I'm going to do a little digging into these numbers when I get home.

I don't think it needs a total overhaul , first off people need to say what they want the aw title to be. Is it a 0-90 rated or 0-100 championship, or something else.

It will be interesting to see what happens this season without any changes.

I don't have a flat game apart from the stayers game but if i knew about this say a few weeks ago then I could have coppled a few horses at it and I would have had fun with it .

I tried to start a conversation about something similar 9 months ago and was shot down in flames.

I did have spreadsheets where I annalysed the number of races by age, distance and ability level in weeks 3 -6 but unfortunately they were not transferred to my new laptop.

My idea was to have two championships in the schedule, a handicap and group championship.

We have 39 races a week so split the schedule up 26 h'cap races and 13 group races. The h'cap races could be two tier, 0-85 and 86-105. (You could use the points system discussed above).

If you then take distances and ages into consideration, you could give trainers lots of options.


When I looked at the existing schedule in weeks 3-6, the majority of the schedule could stay as it was, would only need to tweak 3 or 4 races a week.

As I said, I was shot down, it seems people want this game to reflect real life. I know I think of SO7 as a game but moving 2 races from week 3 to week 5 and 1 race to week 4 and making similar adjustments back to week 3 can make the game any less real life.

We have a number of races called after trainers who have contributed to the league over the years. Does it matter if these races have their distance or handicap bracket changed slightly?

Jim

I dont really think the whole of the league needs changing, the top of the table has always been competitive but its lower down that needs changing. It needs a focal point, something to battle for. It gives all races a meaning.

As the So8 league wont be until 2027 so there is no rush, see what happens this season and take it from there.

I don't advocate changing the whole of the league but I see things the opposite as far as the top of the table goes in relation to the rest of the trainers. We have approx 25 - 30 flat trainers each season. The same 5 or 6 trainers are always near the top of the table. We do get trainers who play 2 or 3 seasons and do well but then disappear again.

Without actually counting every winner of every group race, the same half dozen trainers probably win 95% of all group races. Therefore about 75% of trainers are mostly competing in the handicap races.

I think we have a two tier league at the moment. 25% of trainers near the top competing in group races and 75% of trainers competing in handicap races. Should the make up of races not reflect this ratio?

I agree we need a focal point for the 75% of people winning handicap races.

One last comment. The logs\table should not be based on prize money. There is a good example of this in week 1 where I sit at the top of the flat table based on prize money but both Josh and Vinny won more races than I did.

Jim

Jim I'm going to except u challenge

I'm going to do what Paul is doing with the AW Cup, I'll follow the points paul is doing and keep it updated on this site. I'll do last week's tonight before I'm of on my holly bobs and when I get back in two weeks, I'll get it updated and I'll do it every week to see what happens.

Who will win the inaugural group championship. BTW u not getting a cup if u win.