So Leon asked me how to get full fitness and full condition for that perfect time to export. And in the interest of sharing, which goes against my highly competative nature, the below is how I go about it, you can tell I have OCD.............

I do think it makes a small difference in CK performance, but we are talking pretty small margins and I am begining to think it also does things like horses getting a second wind or staying on when challenged. But having tested both full and the more common 90% the margin is slim, though for me slim can be the difference between 1st and 2nd so I follow this fully on the NH, I do it less on the flat as the flat means less to me as a trainer.

Not that it is as simple as that, as each game schedule and indeed coutry you play in will require thinking around the ideal times on the calendar to export, but whenever it is you want your horse to be in tip top shape for export. I have thoughts and theories about the time of year too if people want to pick my brains on that.

So the key bars are FIT (fitness) and COND (condition). Fitness is a single Red bar, condition is a Red and Green bar that work in an antagonistic manner depending on the training you select. And I always do manual training as I want to have control of these factors, no idea what auto training does as I have never used it in any game version I played. For the condition bar the Red one is basically an energy or stamina reserves indicator, it reduced as a horse is fully trained and raced. You will notice when it runs out or gets too low you will see messages like 'Care. You are overacing this horse' and you will be unable to get them racing fit until it has recovered, actual horse stamina plays a part in how long or often a horse can train and race, and stamina can be increased via stamina specific training, which I often/always use for a period on all horses.

You have to consider all three elements of the two bars in combination. An unfit horse will likely have FIT of about 50% or less and Full on Condition both Green and Red. So lets start there.......

Take your game at the start of a season, if you finished the year in blue training they will all come back with a status of orange or red and the bar conditions I mention above. Flip your horses to red full training. Now comes the power of 7. Every 7 game days the training has a noticiable change. Cycle 7 days initially nothing much happens, at 14 days they will nearly all go to status or orange, on 21 days you will see a lot go status green and some stay orange. Now what you will also see here is the FIT bar is full 100%, but at the same time the condition green bar will be just below full, some of your horses will be either 'Fit and Ready' or 'Raring to go' some will be just short of full fitness. Now from this point if you click forward one more day, you will see the Green condition bar move up to full and the fitness bar usually drop to 90% (not always but mostly) but this is still not a good time to export. So click on 6 more days (you already did one remeber so still a cycle of 7). What you will now see (not withstanding injuries or any horses who are recovering from them) is all horses are at 'Green' status and all horses if not injured or recovering will be 'Fit and ready' or 'Raring to go' you will also see Fitness is full and condition on the green bar is just below full, this marks the cycle that drop and raise of the green condition bar. The red one by the way will just be gradually reducing during this process, not a panic that provided it does not drop too far. Click one more day. The green condition bar is now full. THIS MARKS MY EXPORT POINT. But and here comes the random bit and the faff, Fitness will have dropped again to 90% on some but now all horses. So I go through them, check those who have lined up and export them. I then change their training to blue. I then rinse and repeat the 7 day cycles until all horses at a particular age is now lined up at 100% it can take several goes and does appear to be random. Time is the only issue here, the longer you wait the lower the energy reserve gets, this is bad and of course a long term injury could arise, so I often take them at 100/90 and replace the original export with a 100/100 if I can.

Bored yet? Goes away and curses himself for giving the game away................

Josh

I'll add that I don't always export at the start of the year, I just used that in my example as it is a consistent behaviour in game so it will be easy to replicate. If I export mid season, which I do on some schedules, I tend to rest them for a month or more until the red condition bar is full.

You will need to decide what is more important in your own game play, that big race or the perfect export. I play for the league so for me big races are a secondary consideration.

Someone can correct me if I'm wrong but I have never seen this in auto training.

You can keep your advantage The price of the pain of manual training is to high to pay!!! I have enough clicking to do through the season. I did manual training back in S02 and never touched it again as it drove me crazy ( and stable size was a max of 60 back then )

Manual training is for me a difference maker, I monitor every horse, change stamina and speed, fix agility and jumping and starting for front runners. Yes it is work, especially when churning out 400 NH horses within each breeding cycle, but I fix them all over the course of the game. Training at this level of detail is a huge part of why I think I have league sucess, I make the best of whatever horse I get.

Josh

Dont curse too much.
I'm not sure there are many league trainers that manual train.
Unless someone can demonstrate there is an advantage i cant imagine spending the effort to manage fitness as well.

But thanks for sharing.

It goes to show there is many different ways to breed horses. I think when u get u system down and it works for u then I think u on dangerous grounds if u change it.

I naturally assumed everyone did it, I have honestly never played any other way given I saw this from day one as racing/training sim, thus i figured I want full control, so for me it is the same effort as always, auto training feels like pandoras box, I don't want to open it .

Taking a jumper from average to good makes a difference, agility generally good thing to have for jumpers and flat horses. Adding a whack of stamina helps most jumpers (though it does also increase organically for some horses as they age) adding speed also a difference maker, though again some horses take to the training some don't no matter how long you leave them at it. Same for agility and jumping some never crack it, but most do, I ditch the lines I cannot train for the most part.

That's why you will do well and probably pass me. I didn't even realise people played manual training for the league I don't have the time to train like this, and you can't change your game mid-game to manual training.

I have to rely on breeding to improve my jumping lines etc. I am really harsh with not breeding with certain horses like average jumpers, fallers, small builds etc. You use a lot more in depth work and if I had time it would be great to try. But work for me continues as normal so don't have that type of time. Although it seems like a good way to play

Work continues as normal for me too, but having always played like this I don't know any other way. I am begining to understand why I feel like I am moving much slower than everyone else mind. Seasons take a long time, I likely flip all horses in and out of different trainings 10 times per year average to iron out the wrinkles.

I can see how this can really benefit your NH team. I have to fix jumping and agility by breeding which takes season to improve. The majority of mine are good jumping now. Agility is improving but still requires work. Not much I can do about speed or stamina so that's where manual training would benefit, but still have the fear factor from my last expierence tryng to get league horses playing with manual training and that was more than 10 years ago and stable size was only 60 ( I normally have some 380 to 500 horses in training now )

When i first got the new game i didn't pick auto training and was getting used to manual training but for the league it would take me an age to play a full season.

Take my hat of to you josh. You have a great system in place and your finger tips must be made of steel with all the continuous clicking.

I guess i'm just lazy when it comes to playing the game and training these days. Having 400+ would drive insane. But i can see the benefits from having that many.

I've struggled to play this year and sadly no days of me through this ( bleeping company) I like to watch my horses run in game and it gives me a better idea about them when in CK, it takes longer to play but I save time when I run trials. I think everyone needs to find a system and that is why newbies struggle at the start.

Do you race any of the horses or just breed then condition them and then trial them in the ck?

Have some questions.

Do the horses pass the learnt traits, jumping ability etc, onto their offspring or not?
Does increasing the stamina cause the horse to have speed issues over 2 miles for example and vica versa for speed over longer distances?
When increasing speed or stamina does this increase the horses status bars?
Does the new speed or stamina get passed on or do you have to start again?

jaysus sounds like hard work to me more than happy to have 90% fit horses