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Lily don't get caught up with light and dark green at the start of a game plus when she was 5 she might have been full , after 5 they go down on a flat game .

Agreed some even start to decline at 4 if they peak at 2yo. Unrealised potential horses can still breed one who does realise the same level of potential.

She looks a dream mare to start with. Try her with the very best breeder from the game stallions in the barn. If she's 6, there's even a small chance that the potential bar may be higher than that at 4 or 5 too. Look for the colt who has bred the most group1 winners at the very start, if it's a foreign horse even better. Her role now is to get you as many high potential progeny as possible, with good breeding colts.

Thanks everyone! Glad to hear she looks like a great breeding prospect. Will see what she produces in the coming seasons.

I have a rather elaborate question, or if there's already a thread on this that would be great! I'm a little unsure about how I should be structuring Trials. Should I sort the horses by their stamina and what distance I think they will run? What about surface? Or just run them all at about 6F regardless? OR, not trial the high stamina horses until 3yo's? Any advice would be great!

Surface

The going in the league varies quite a lot. If you look at this weeks races there are flat races in both Soft and Firmer ground. I trial my flat horese on Good to Soft and Food to Firm ground. Some horses only do well on one type of ground but I look for horses that like a wider range of going, but don't disregard a horse that is brilliant on only one surface.


Stamina Bar

The stamina bar is not always very accurate in SO7, especially in the NH side of things. I don't have very large stables so only export about 8 horses in each age group a season. So if I have 8 x 3yo flat horses, no matter what the stamina bar looks like, I would still trial all the horses at a large variety of distances from sprints to longer distances.


Trial Tactics

Don't have too large fields when trialling horses. I usually try to keep the numbers below 15. Once you know the best 2 horses at a distance, race your newly exported horses against the best 2 horses you have. I run 4 races over softer ground and 4 races over firmer ground at each distance taking carefull note of the top 5 horses in each race. I look for consistancy in a horses performance not just a one time brilliant race.


Age of Horse

Trial all your horses at the end of each year. Some horses do well at only one age, that may be 2yo or 6yo. Don't disregard the large stamina 2yo horses.

I simplify my surface and just land in the middle, good for flat soft for NH. They run on those happy days. I do tend to refine this more when doing final team selections but for interim trials I just get a average.

Distance is tricky and the bars don’t help. Ck horses tend to display the best average distance which can confuse the actual best distance, especially if the horse only found success in the short distance maidens. I have horses guided at 5f who are really 1.2m types etc, you need to have an understanding and expectation of the breeding line and then trial maybe 2-4f eitherside to be sure.

I also don’t trial every year as it is hardly exciting, find a system that works for you there is no right answer and it is far from an exact science.

Thanks to the both of you, that info was very helpful. I ran a bunch of trials and had a horse that was by far the strongest. Would you guess he's the horse with the LOWEST Potential in that group... only 60% He can run a mile at 1:40, which is the closest time I've had yet to what I see the League horses winning at. So I'm pretty happy with a little bit of improvement I'm thinking I will keep him to breed to my higher potential mares.

On that note, look at this 10yo Mare I picked up.


Also. I've read you should judge stats as Yearlings, right? The best potential I'm getting is about 85% so far, if they are around this is a Yearling, are they unlikely to ever go higher?

I have 180 mares in the breeding barn now. I'm working my way down the stallion list and trying to cover everything that looks decent. Very few are foreign stallions sadly, and I haven't had any great potential improvements appear - but some okay runners in other aspects.

Edit: I actually just had a Colt age up to 3yo and hit 91% Pot, I think he was about 83% as a 2yo. He didn't trial well at all as a 2yo but I'll throw him over a bunch of mares this year anyway

There is no exact science in how they progress different lines go at different ages and by different amounts. My best yearlings are about 88% I keep anything from 80% upwards less for the longer distance types where my lines are weakest. 5% a year is a decent yardstick.

I'm of the opinion you're worrying about nothing, the potential bar is important but is only part of it. So just enter a horse in the league and find out for yourself. And remember you are racing against everyone's best horses, so if you don't finish last and tailed off without a good excuse you have a good horse to further your game.

Thanks for the endless advice. I will throw the colt I'm speaking of into the league when uploads open just for the kicks. You had a good point, sort of just being 'throw him in because there's nothing to lose.' I will do that. I keep finding myself with more questions however.

I've been trialing my 2yo's at the start of the year and unraced. I saw others saying to export around August - should I be exporting and trialing then instead? Or is this just for horses you will upload to the league? What about races? Should I race my 2yo's before I trial them, or only race them before I upload to the league?

Also, I worry I've committed my game to randomness haha. I have 250 breeding mares of 70% Potential and up. Most are average horses and many are game-breds I collected at sales. I was thinking the more I had, the more likely I was to get lucky with a great horse. I'm not sure that is true, plus sorting those yearlings and 2yo's is hell.

I'm starting to think I have a lack of understanding for why how a horse races is so important. I keep seeing you all say 'Look at the race comments. Watch your races.' But in my head it shouldn't matter how a horse runs, if it's a good horse it will win regardless - I'm obviously wrong! Horses win as closers that sweep in from the back and they also win as Front Runners who maintain their lead. So what is it that you are all looking for? That they quicken rapidly when asked by their jockey? That they don't fizzle out near the wire? I know there are so many hidden stats, I guess I'm just not sure how to spot them... maybe it's an experience thing.

I am in love with the complexity of the game, it's what is keeping me so interested. But I think I'm also a little over whelmed. There is SO much to learn!

Just to reinforce that potential is good but not everything - that trialing is the key to picking your league horses. This is my best sprinter. Not a top class league horse but a winner this season in the league. He surprised me during the trials. He doesn't even make 75% potential. Thank goodness I trialed my 2yo's to see who's best before selling them off. For league games with the hidden stats the Speed and Acceleration bars at 100% are big pluses.

Just because that frame around the horse portrait bugs me and if you or anyone else missed this and is interested I posted this long ago...

This is Pauls great 2yo ck/league starter. Unraced means they have not improved for a run so you can tell before racing if the horse will be any good in the ck before racing ( a 2yo will improve about 7lb for a run in rl). It will not improve unless it can already run well in the ck. August tends to be half way through the season and the easiest time to export your horses as long as you dont have too many injuries.

Injuries are a ball ache when trying to mass export.

I used Paul's 2yo tactic for a while and it was great at early identification of league types. I did end up stopping, though, because those 2yo are no use for actually uploading to the league and I was having to do 2 x 2yo outputs every season - tried to streamline my process a bit.